$100 in 1923 is worth $175 in 1961,
because prices increased 74.9% over that period, an average of
1.48% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.9%
Average inflation rate
1.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.85
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1923 → 1961
$175
$100 in 1961 → 1923
$57.19
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1961
Between 1923 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.9%, which works out to an average of
1.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1961: the 1923 dollar
lost 42.8% of its purchasing power over
these 38 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1961 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,749, and $10,000 becomes $17,485.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.74
$10.00
$17.49
$20.00
$34.97
$50.00
$87.43
$100
$175
$500
$874
$1,000
$1,749
$5,000
$8,743
$10,000
$17,485
$100,000
$174,854
$1,000,000
$1,748,538
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1961
Between 1923 and 1961, food rose the most, up 97.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 70.1%, against 74.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.48%
$175
Food
1.81%
$197
Apparel
1.41%
$170
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $85.96 by
1941, on its way to $175 in 1961; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, 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 1923 had the buying
power of $175; 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 1923 to 1961: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1961/