$100 in 1936 is worth $213 in 1960,
because prices increased 112.9% over that period, an average of
3.20% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$213
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
112.9%
Average inflation rate
3.20% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$213
Price difference ($100 base)
$113
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1936 → 1960
$213
$100 in 1960 → 1936
$46.96
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1960
Between 1936 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 112.9%, which works out to an average of
3.20% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.47 buys in 1960: the 1936 dollar
lost 53.0% of its purchasing power over
these 24 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 2.13: $1,000 becomes
$2,129, and $10,000 becomes $21,295.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.13
$5.00
$10.65
$10.00
$21.29
$20.00
$42.59
$50.00
$106
$100
$213
$500
$1,065
$1,000
$2,129
$5,000
$10,647
$10,000
$21,295
$100,000
$212,950
$1,000,000
$2,129,496
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1960
Between 1936 and 1960, food rose the most, up 138.1%, while transportation rose the least, up 108.4%, against 112.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.20%
$213
Food
3.68%
$238
Medical care
3.31%
$219
Apparel
3.29%
$218
Transportation
3.11%
$208
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$213
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $173 by
1948, on its way to $213 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 1936 had the buying
power of $213; 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 1936 to 1960: $100 is worth $213 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1960/