$100 in 1926 is worth $173 in 1963,
because prices increased 72.9% over that period, an average of
1.49% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$173
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
72.9%
Average inflation rate
1.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$173
Price difference ($100 base)
$72.88
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1926 → 1963
$173
$100 in 1963 → 1926
$57.84
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1963
Between 1926 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 72.9%, which works out to an average of
1.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1963: the 1926 dollar
lost 42.2% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1963 at the same ratio, 1.73: $1,000 becomes
$1,729, and $10,000 becomes $17,288.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.73
$5.00
$8.64
$10.00
$17.29
$20.00
$34.58
$50.00
$86.44
$100
$173
$500
$864
$1,000
$1,729
$5,000
$8,644
$10,000
$17,288
$100,000
$172,881
$1,000,000
$1,728,814
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1963
Between 1926 and 1963, food rose the most, up 82.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 81.1%, against 72.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.49%
$173
Food
1.65%
$183
Apparel
1.62%
$181
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$167
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$173
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $99.44 by
1944, on its way to $173 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 1926 had the buying
power of $173; 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 1926 to 1963: $100 is worth $173 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1963/