$100 in 1943 is worth $171 in 1960,
because prices increased 71.1% over that period, an average of
3.21% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.1%
Average inflation rate
3.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.10
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1943 → 1960
$171
$100 in 1960 → 1943
$58.45
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1960
Between 1943 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.1%, which works out to an average of
3.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1960: the 1943 dollar
lost 41.6% of its purchasing power over
these 17 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,711, and $10,000 becomes $17,110.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.55
$10.00
$17.11
$20.00
$34.22
$50.00
$85.55
$100
$171
$500
$855
$1,000
$1,711
$5,000
$8,555
$10,000
$17,110
$100,000
$171,098
$1,000,000
$1,710,983
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1960
Between 1943 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 99.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 64.4%, against 71.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.21%
$171
Medical care
4.13%
$199
Transportation
3.76%
$187
Food
3.36%
$175
Apparel
2.97%
$164
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $150 by
1951, on its way to $171 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 1943 had the buying
power of $171; 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 1943 to 1960: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1960/