$100 in 1934 is worth $221 in 1960,
because prices increased 120.9% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$221
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
120.9%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$221
Price difference ($100 base)
$121
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1934 → 1960
$221
$100 in 1960 → 1934
$45.27
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1960
Between 1934 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 120.9%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.45 buys in 1960: the 1934 dollar
lost 54.7% of its purchasing power over
these 26 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1934 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 2.21: $1,000 becomes
$2,209, and $10,000 becomes $22,090.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.21
$5.00
$11.04
$10.00
$22.09
$20.00
$44.18
$50.00
$110
$100
$221
$500
$1,104
$1,000
$2,209
$5,000
$11,045
$10,000
$22,090
$100,000
$220,896
$1,000,000
$2,208,955
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1960
Between 1934 and 1960, food rose the most, up 158.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 121.8%, against 120.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$221
Food
3.72%
$259
Apparel
3.11%
$222
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1934: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1934 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$180
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$221
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $166 by
1947, on its way to $221 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $221; 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 1934 to 1960: $100 is worth $221 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1960/