$100 in 1913 is worth $302 in 1961,
because prices increased 202.0% over that period, an average of
2.33% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$302
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
202.0%
Average inflation rate
2.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$302
Price difference ($100 base)
$202
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1913 → 1961
$302
$100 in 1961 → 1913
$33.11
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1961
Between 1913 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 202.0%, which works out to an average of
2.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1961: the 1913 dollar
lost 66.9% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1961 at the same ratio, 3.02: $1,000 becomes
$3,020, and $10,000 becomes $30,202.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1961
$1.00
$3.02
$5.00
$15.10
$10.00
$30.20
$20.00
$60.40
$50.00
$151
$100
$302
$500
$1,510
$1,000
$3,020
$5,000
$15,101
$10,000
$30,202
$100,000
$302,020
$1,000,000
$3,020,202
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1961
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.33%
$302
Food
2.34%
$304
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$299
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$302
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $145 by
1937, on its way to $302 in 1961; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $302; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1961: $100 is worth $302 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1961/