$100 in 1951 is worth $118 in 1963,
because prices increased 17.7% over that period, an average of
1.37% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$118
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
17.7%
Average inflation rate
1.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$118
Price difference ($100 base)
$17.69
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1951 → 1963
$118
$100 in 1963 → 1951
$84.97
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1963
Between 1951 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 17.7%, which works out to an average of
1.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.85 buys in 1963: the 1951 dollar
lost 15.0% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.18: $1,000 becomes
$1,177, and $10,000 becomes $11,769.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.18
$5.00
$5.88
$10.00
$11.77
$20.00
$23.54
$50.00
$58.85
$100
$118
$500
$588
$1,000
$1,177
$5,000
$5,885
$10,000
$11,769
$100,000
$117,692
$1,000,000
$1,176,923
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1963
Between 1951 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 51.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 6.8%, against 17.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.37%
$118
Medical care
3.53%
$152
Transportation
2.09%
$128
Food
0.82%
$110
Apparel
0.55%
$107
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–).
Decade by decade: 1951 to 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.45% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1951–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1951, at end
1951–1960
1.45%
13.8%
$114
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$118
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $108 by
1957, on its way to $118 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $118; 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 1951 to 1963: $100 is worth $118 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1963/