$100 in 1968 is worth $925 in 2025,
because prices increased 825.1% over that period, an average of
3.98% a year.
$100 in 1968 has
the same buying power as
$925
in 2025
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
825.1%
Average inflation rate
3.98% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$925
Price difference ($100 base)
$825
CPI in 1968
34.8
CPI in 2025
321.943
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
Inflation in 2025
2.63%
$100 in 1968 → 2025
$925
$100 in 2025 → 1968
$10.81
What happened to prices between 1968 and 2025
Between 1968 and 2025, the Consumer Price Index went from 34.8 to 321.943.
Cumulatively, prices increased 825.1%, which works out to an average of
3.98% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1968 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2025: the 1968 dollar
lost 89.2% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 2025 at the same ratio, 9.25: $1,000 becomes
$9,251, and $10,000 becomes $92,512.
Amount in 1968
Value in 2025
$1.00
$9.25
$5.00
$46.26
$10.00
$92.51
$20.00
$185
$50.00
$463
$100
$925
$500
$4,626
$1,000
$9,251
$5,000
$46,256
$10,000
$92,512
$100,000
$925,124
$1,000,000
$9,251,236
Inflation by spending category, 1968–2025
Between 1968 and 2025, medical care rose the most, up 1840.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 144.5%, against 825.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1968
spending costs in 2025, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1968 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.98%
$925
Medical care
5.34%
$1,940
Energy
4.38%
$1,154
Housing
4.27%
$1,083
Food
4.05%
$962
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.94%
$904
Transportation
3.70%
$793
Apparel
1.58%
$245
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1968: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1968 to 2025
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 1968–2025 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
2020–2025
4.46%
24.4%
$925
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1968
$100 from 1968 had already become $451 by
1996, on its way to $925 in 2025; 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: 2025
In 2025, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1968 had the buying
power of $925; the year's average CPI of 321.943 is the level
behind every 2025 figure on this page.
2025 was a year of trade policy and data disruptions rather than an
inflation surge. Consumer prices rose 2.6% on average, a step down from
2024’s 2.9% and well below the 8.0% of 2022. Tariffs announced in April
pushed up prices for some imported goods, including furniture, apparel, and
auto parts, but the effect on the overall index was smaller than many
forecasters feared at the start of the year, in part because retailers
absorbed some of the cost and demand for services stayed steady.
The Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady through the first half of the
year, then began cutting again in September, lowering it in three quarter-point
steps to 3.50–3.75% by December.
The federal government shutdown that began October 1 lasted 43 days, and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI for October 2025 because the
survey data could not be collected. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 78 cents in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1968 to 2025: $100 is worth $925 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2025/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1968 to 2025. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1968-to-2025/