$100 in 1944 is worth $168 in 1960,
because prices increased 68.2% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$168
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
68.2%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$168
Price difference ($100 base)
$68.18
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1944 → 1960
$168
$100 in 1960 → 1944
$59.46
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1960
Between 1944 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 68.2%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1960: the 1944 dollar
lost 40.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.68: $1,000 becomes
$1,682, and $10,000 becomes $16,818.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.68
$5.00
$8.41
$10.00
$16.82
$20.00
$33.64
$50.00
$84.09
$100
$168
$500
$841
$1,000
$1,682
$5,000
$8,409
$10,000
$16,818
$100,000
$168,182
$1,000,000
$1,681,818
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1960
Between 1944 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 92.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 53.4%, against 68.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$168
Medical care
4.17%
$192
Transportation
4.00%
$187
Food
3.65%
$178
Apparel
2.71%
$153
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$168
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $151 by
1952, on its way to $168 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 1944 had the buying
power of $168; 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 1944 to 1960: $100 is worth $168 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1960/