$100 in 1953 is worth $115 in 1963,
because prices increased 14.6% over that period, an average of
1.37% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$115
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
14.6%
Average inflation rate
1.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$115
Price difference ($100 base)
$14.61
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1953 → 1963
$115
$100 in 1963 → 1953
$87.25
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1963
Between 1953 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 14.6%, which works out to an average of
1.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.87 buys in 1963: the 1953 dollar
lost 12.7% of its purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1953 amount converts to 1963 at the same ratio, 1.15: $1,000 becomes
$1,146, and $10,000 becomes $11,461.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.15
$5.00
$5.73
$10.00
$11.46
$20.00
$22.92
$50.00
$57.30
$100
$115
$500
$573
$1,000
$1,146
$5,000
$5,730
$10,000
$11,461
$100,000
$114,607
$1,000,000
$1,146,067
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1963
Between 1953 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 39.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 8.8%, against 14.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.37%
$115
Medical care
3.37%
$139
Transportation
1.55%
$117
Food
0.95%
$110
Apparel
0.85%
$109
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1953: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1953 to 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.48% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1953–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1953, at end
1953–1960
1.48%
10.9%
$111
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$115
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $108 by
1958, on its way to $115 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 1953 had the buying
power of $115; 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 1953 to 1963: $100 is worth $115 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1963/