$100 in 1925 is worth $169 in 1960,
because prices increased 69.1% over that period, an average of
1.51% a year.
$100 in 1925 has
the same buying power as
$169
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
69.1%
Average inflation rate
1.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$169
Price difference ($100 base)
$69.14
CPI in 1925
17.5
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1925 → 1960
$169
$100 in 1960 → 1925
$59.12
What happened to prices between 1925 and 1960
Between 1925 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.5 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 69.1%, which works out to an average of
1.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1925 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1960: the 1925 dollar
lost 40.9% of its purchasing power over
these 35 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
Every 1925 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.69: $1,000 becomes
$1,691, and $10,000 becomes $16,914.
Amount in 1925
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.69
$5.00
$8.46
$10.00
$16.91
$20.00
$33.83
$50.00
$84.57
$100
$169
$500
$846
$1,000
$1,691
$5,000
$8,457
$10,000
$16,914
$100,000
$169,143
$1,000,000
$1,691,429
Inflation by spending category, 1925–1960
Between 1925 and 1960, food rose the most, up 81.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 73.8%, against 69.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1925
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1925 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.51%
$169
Food
1.72%
$182
Apparel
1.59%
$174
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1925: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1925 to 1960
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 1925–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1925, at end
1925–1930
-0.93%
-4.6%
$95.43
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$138
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$169
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1925
$100 from 1925 had already become $98.86 by
1943, on its way to $169 in 1960; 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: 1960
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1925 had the buying
power of $169; 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 1925 to 1960: $100 is worth $169 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1925 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1960/