$100 in 1927 is worth $170 in 1960,
because prices increased 70.1% over that period, an average of
1.62% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$170
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
70.1%
Average inflation rate
1.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$170
Price difference ($100 base)
$70.11
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1927 → 1960
$170
$100 in 1960 → 1927
$58.78
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1960
Between 1927 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 70.1%, which works out to an average of
1.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1960: the 1927 dollar
lost 41.2% of its purchasing power over
these 33 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.70: $1,000 becomes
$1,701, and $10,000 becomes $17,011.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.70
$5.00
$8.51
$10.00
$17.01
$20.00
$34.02
$50.00
$85.06
$100
$170
$500
$851
$1,000
$1,701
$5,000
$8,506
$10,000
$17,011
$100,000
$170,115
$1,000,000
$1,701,149
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1960
Between 1927 and 1960, food rose the most, up 82.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 80.6%, against 70.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.62%
$170
Food
1.85%
$183
Apparel
1.81%
$181
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 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 1927–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.46
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$170
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $99.43 by
1943, on its way to $170 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 1927 had the buying
power of $170; 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 1927 to 1960: $100 is worth $170 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1960/