$100 in 1919 is worth $171 in 1960,
because prices increased 71.1% over that period, an average of
1.32% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.1%
Average inflation rate
1.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.10
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1919 → 1960
$171
$100 in 1960 → 1919
$58.45
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1960
Between 1919 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.1%, which works out to an average of
1.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1960: the 1919 dollar
lost 41.6% of its purchasing power over
these 41 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,711, and $10,000 becomes $17,110.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.55
$10.00
$17.11
$20.00
$34.22
$50.00
$85.55
$100
$171
$500
$855
$1,000
$1,711
$5,000
$8,555
$10,000
$17,110
$100,000
$171,098
$1,000,000
$1,710,983
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1960
Between 1919 and 1960, food rose the most, up 61.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 26.2%, against 71.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.32%
$171
Food
1.17%
$161
Apparel
0.57%
$126
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $80.35 by
1939, on its way to $171 in 1960; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1919 had the buying
power of $171; 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 1919 to 1960: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1960/