$100 in 1923 is worth $179 in 1963,
because prices increased 78.9% over that period, an average of
1.47% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$179
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
78.9%
Average inflation rate
1.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$179
Price difference ($100 base)
$78.95
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1923 → 1963
$179
$100 in 1963 → 1923
$55.88
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1963
Between 1923 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 78.9%, which works out to an average of
1.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1963: the 1923 dollar
lost 44.1% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.79: $1,000 becomes
$1,789, and $10,000 becomes $17,895.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.79
$5.00
$8.95
$10.00
$17.89
$20.00
$35.79
$50.00
$89.47
$100
$179
$500
$895
$1,000
$1,789
$5,000
$8,947
$10,000
$17,895
$100,000
$178,947
$1,000,000
$1,789,474
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1963
Between 1923 and 1963, food rose the most, up 101.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 73.1%, against 78.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.47%
$179
Food
1.77%
$202
Apparel
1.38%
$173
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 1963
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 1923–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$179
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $101 by
1943, on its way to $179 in 1963; 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: 1963
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $179; 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 1923 to 1963: $100 is worth $179 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1963/