$100 in 1951 is worth $114 in 1960,
because prices increased 13.8% over that period, an average of
1.45% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.8%
Average inflation rate
1.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.85
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1951 → 1960
$114
$100 in 1960 → 1951
$87.84
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1960
Between 1951 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.8%, which works out to an average of
1.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1960: the 1951 dollar
lost 12.2% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
Every 1951 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,138, and $10,000 becomes $11,385.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.69
$10.00
$11.38
$20.00
$22.77
$50.00
$56.92
$100
$114
$500
$569
$1,000
$1,138
$5,000
$5,692
$10,000
$11,385
$100,000
$113,846
$1,000,000
$1,138,462
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1960
Between 1951 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 40.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.1%, against 13.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.45%
$114
Medical care
3.83%
$140
Transportation
2.39%
$124
Food
0.69%
$106
Apparel
0.45%
$104
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $103 by
1955, on its way to $114 in 1960; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $114; 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 1951 to 1960: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1960/