$100 in 1948 is worth $127 in 1963,
because prices increased 27.0% over that period, an average of
1.60% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$127
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.0%
Average inflation rate
1.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$127
Price difference ($100 base)
$26.97
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1948 → 1963
$127
$100 in 1963 → 1948
$78.76
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1963
Between 1948 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.0%, which works out to an average of
1.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.79 buys in 1963: the 1948 dollar
lost 21.2% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.27: $1,000 becomes
$1,270, and $10,000 becomes $12,697.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.27
$5.00
$6.35
$10.00
$12.70
$20.00
$25.39
$50.00
$63.49
$100
$127
$500
$635
$1,000
$1,270
$5,000
$6,349
$10,000
$12,697
$100,000
$126,971
$1,000,000
$1,269,710
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1963
Between 1948 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 67.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 10.4%, against 27.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.60%
$127
Medical care
3.49%
$167
Transportation
2.74%
$150
Food
1.18%
$119
Apparel
0.66%
$110
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 1963
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 1948–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$127
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $111 by
1955, on its way to $127 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $127; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 1963: $100 is worth $127 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1963/