$100 in 1913 is worth $309 in 1963,
because prices increased 209.1% over that period, an average of
2.28% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$309
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
209.1%
Average inflation rate
2.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$309
Price difference ($100 base)
$209
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1913 → 1963
$309
$100 in 1963 → 1913
$32.35
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1963
Between 1913 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 209.1%, which works out to an average of
2.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.32 buys in 1963: the 1913 dollar
lost 67.6% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1963 at the same ratio, 3.09: $1,000 becomes
$3,091, and $10,000 becomes $30,909.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1963
$1.00
$3.09
$5.00
$15.45
$10.00
$30.91
$20.00
$61.82
$50.00
$155
$100
$309
$500
$1,545
$1,000
$3,091
$5,000
$15,455
$10,000
$30,909
$100,000
$309,091
$1,000,000
$3,090,909
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1963
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.28%
$309
Food
2.30%
$311
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 1963
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 1913–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$309
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $145 by
1937, on its way to $309 in 1963; 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: 1963
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $309; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1963: $100 is worth $309 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1963/