$100 in 1968 is worth $841 in 2022,
because prices increased 741.0% over that period, an average of
4.02% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$841
in 2022
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
741.0%
Average inflation rate
4.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$841
Price difference ($100 base)
$741
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2022
292.655
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2022
8.00%
$100 in 1968 → 2022
$841
$100 in 2022 → 1968
$11.89
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2022
Between 1968 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 741.0%, which works out to an average of
4.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2022: the 1968 dollar
lost 88.1% of its purchasing power over
these 54 years.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in 1968, up sharply from 1967’s
3.1% and the fastest pace in 17 years, as Vietnam War spending and a tight
labor market pushed inflation higher despite the Federal Reserve’s
earlier tightening. The year was marked by political violence: Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April
4, touching off rioting in more than 100 cities, and Robert F. Kennedy was
shot in Los Angeles on June 5, moments after winning California’s
Democratic presidential primary, and died the next day. Washington tried
to answer the inflation problem directly that June 28, when Congress
passed a 10% income tax surcharge, the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act, temporarily raising taxes and cutting spending to cool an economy
overheated by war and Great Society outlays; prices kept accelerating
anyway. The cost of living rose in smaller, more visible ways too:
first-class postage climbed to 6 cents that January 7, and the minimum
wage rose to $1.60 an hour that February 1, the final step of the
increase Congress had set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1968 251.5% above their 1913 level.
Every 1968 amount converts to 2022 at the same ratio, 8.41: $1,000 becomes
$8,410, and $10,000 becomes $84,096.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2022
$1.00
$8.41
$5.00
$42.05
$10.00
$84.10
$20.00
$168
$50.00
$420
$100
$841
$500
$4,205
$1,000
$8,410
$5,000
$42,048
$10,000
$84,096
$100,000
$840,963
$1,000,000
$8,409,626
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2022
Between 1968 and 2022, medical care rose the most, up 1727.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 136.6%, against 741.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.02%
$841
Medical care
5.53%
$1,828
Energy
4.76%
$1,233
Housing
4.24%
$940
Food
4.08%
$865
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.95%
$811
Transportation
3.87%
$776
Apparel
1.61%
$237
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2022
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1968–2022 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1968, at end
1968–1970
5.59%
11.5%
$111
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$237
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$376
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$495
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$627
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$744
2020–2022
6.34%
13.1%
$841
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $426 by
1994, on its way to $841 in 2022; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2022
In 2022, prices rose 8.0% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $841; the year's average CPI of 292.655 is the level
behind every 2022 figure on this page.
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2022: $100 is worth $841 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2022/