$100 in 1954 is worth $110 in 1960,
because prices increased 10.0% over that period, an average of
1.61% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
10.0%
Average inflation rate
1.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$10.04
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1954 → 1960
$110
$100 in 1960 → 1954
$90.88
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1960
Between 1954 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 10.0%, which works out to an average of
1.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1960: the 1954 dollar
lost 9.1% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1954 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,100, and $10,000 becomes $11,004.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.50
$10.00
$11.00
$20.00
$22.01
$50.00
$55.02
$100
$110
$500
$550
$1,000
$1,100
$5,000
$5,502
$10,000
$11,004
$100,000
$110,037
$1,000,000
$1,100,372
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1960
Between 1954 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 25.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 6.0%, against 10.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.61%
$110
Medical care
3.83%
$125
Transportation
2.23%
$114
Food
1.04%
$106
Apparel
0.98%
$106
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1954: 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 1954
$100 from 1954 had already become $104 by
1957, on its way to $110 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 1954 had the buying
power of $110; 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 1954 to 1960: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1960/