$100 in 1948 is worth $123 in 1960,
because prices increased 22.8% over that period, an average of
1.73% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$123
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.8%
Average inflation rate
1.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$123
Price difference ($100 base)
$22.82
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1948 → 1960
$123
$100 in 1960 → 1948
$81.42
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1960
Between 1948 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.8%, which works out to an average of
1.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1960: the 1948 dollar
lost 18.6% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.23: $1,000 becomes
$1,228, and $10,000 becomes $12,282.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.23
$5.00
$6.14
$10.00
$12.28
$20.00
$24.56
$50.00
$61.41
$100
$123
$500
$614
$1,000
$1,228
$5,000
$6,141
$10,000
$12,282
$100,000
$122,822
$1,000,000
$1,228,216
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1960
Between 1948 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 54.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.5%, against 22.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.73%
$123
Medical care
3.71%
$155
Transportation
3.12%
$145
Food
1.17%
$115
Apparel
0.61%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1960
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1960 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $112 by
1954, on its way to $123 in 1960; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $123; 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 1948 to 1960: $100 is worth $123 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1960/