$100 in 1914 is worth $296 in 1960,
because prices increased 196.0% over that period, an average of
2.39% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$296
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
196.0%
Average inflation rate
2.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$296
Price difference ($100 base)
$196
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1914 → 1960
$296
$100 in 1960 → 1914
$33.78
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1960
Between 1914 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 196.0%, which works out to an average of
2.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.34 buys in 1960: the 1914 dollar
lost 66.2% of its purchasing power over
these 46 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 2.96: $1,000 becomes
$2,960, and $10,000 becomes $29,600.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.96
$5.00
$14.80
$10.00
$29.60
$20.00
$59.20
$50.00
$148
$100
$296
$500
$1,480
$1,000
$2,960
$5,000
$14,800
$10,000
$29,600
$100,000
$296,000
$1,000,000
$2,960,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1960
Between 1914 and 1960, apparel rose the most, up 204.7%, while food rose the least, up 194.1%, against 196.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.39%
$296
Apparel
2.45%
$305
Food
2.37%
$294
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$296
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $139 by
1936, on its way to $296 in 1960; 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: 1960
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $296; the year's average CPI of 29.6 is the level
behind every 1960 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.7% in 1960, up from 1959’s 0.7% even
as the economy slipped into recession that April, a downturn that would
prove the shortest since World War II. The year’s defining political
moment came that November, when John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard
Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history,
decided by roughly two-tenths of a percentage point in the popular vote.
Television played a new role in the race: the first-ever televised
presidential debate that September, watched by an estimated 70 million
people, was widely seen as favoring the telegenic Kennedy. Civil rights
protest took a new form that February, when four Black freshmen at North
Carolina A&T State University sat down at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch
counter in Greensboro and refused to leave; the sit-in tactic spread to
dozens of Southern cities within weeks. Cold War tensions flared that May,
when a Soviet missile downed an American U-2 spy plane deep inside Soviet
airspace. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured alive, embarrassing
the Eisenhower administration and collapsing a Paris summit called to ease
relations with Moscow. Consumer prices finished 1960 199.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1960: $100 is worth $296 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1960/