$100 in 1941 is worth $201 in 1960,
because prices increased 101.4% over that period, an average of
3.75% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$201
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
101.4%
Average inflation rate
3.75% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$201
Price difference ($100 base)
$101
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1941 → 1960
$201
$100 in 1960 → 1941
$49.66
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1960
Between 1941 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 101.4%, which works out to an average of
3.75% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1960: the 1941 dollar
lost 50.3% of its purchasing power over
these 19 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1941 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 2.01: $1,000 becomes
$2,014, and $10,000 becomes $20,136.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1960
$1.00
$2.01
$5.00
$10.07
$10.00
$20.14
$20.00
$40.27
$50.00
$101
$100
$201
$500
$1,007
$1,000
$2,014
$5,000
$10,068
$10,000
$20,136
$100,000
$201,361
$1,000,000
$2,013,605
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1960
Between 1941 and 1960, food rose the most, up 129.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 100.4%, against 101.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.75%
$201
Food
4.46%
$229
Medical care
4.10%
$214
Transportation
3.79%
$203
Apparel
3.73%
$200
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1941: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1941 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.65% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1941–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1941, at end
1941–1950
5.65%
63.9%
$164
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$201
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $164 by
1950, on its way to $201 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $201; 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 1941 to 1960: $100 is worth $201 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1960/