$100 in 1916 is worth $272 in 1960,
because prices increased 171.6% over that period, an average of
2.30% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$272
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
171.6%
Average inflation rate
2.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$272
Price difference ($100 base)
$172
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1916 → 1960
$272
$100 in 1960 → 1916
$36.82
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1960
Between 1916 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 171.6%, which works out to an average of
2.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1960: the 1916 dollar
lost 63.2% of its purchasing power over
these 44 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 2.72: $1,000 becomes
$2,716, and $10,000 becomes $27,156.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.72
$5.00
$13.58
$10.00
$27.16
$20.00
$54.31
$50.00
$136
$100
$272
$500
$1,358
$1,000
$2,716
$5,000
$13,578
$10,000
$27,156
$100,000
$271,560
$1,000,000
$2,715,596
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1960
Between 1916 and 1960, apparel rose the most, up 172.0%, while food rose the least, up 165.5%, against 171.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.30%
$272
Apparel
2.30%
$272
Food
2.24%
$265
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$272
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $129 by
1938, on its way to $272 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 1916 had the buying
power of $272; 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 1916 to 1960: $100 is worth $272 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1960/