$100 in 1945 is worth $164 in 1960,
because prices increased 64.4% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$164
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
64.4%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$164
Price difference ($100 base)
$64.44
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1945 → 1960
$164
$100 in 1960 → 1945
$60.81
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1960
Between 1945 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 64.4%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1960: the 1945 dollar
lost 39.2% of its purchasing power over
these 15 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.64: $1,000 becomes
$1,644, and $10,000 becomes $16,444.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.64
$5.00
$8.22
$10.00
$16.44
$20.00
$32.89
$50.00
$82.22
$100
$164
$500
$822
$1,000
$1,644
$5,000
$8,222
$10,000
$16,444
$100,000
$164,444
$1,000,000
$1,644,444
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1960
Between 1945 and 1960, transportation rose the most, up 87.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 45.5%, against 64.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$164
Transportation
4.28%
$187
Medical care
4.28%
$187
Food
3.74%
$173
Apparel
2.53%
$146
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$164
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $147 by
1952, on its way to $164 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 1945 had the buying
power of $164; 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 1945 to 1960: $100 is worth $164 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1960/