$100 in 1956 is worth $113 in 1963,
because prices increased 12.5% over that period, an average of
1.70% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
12.5%
Average inflation rate
1.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$12.50
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1956 → 1963
$113
$100 in 1963 → 1956
$88.89
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1963
Between 1956 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 12.5%, which works out to an average of
1.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.89 buys in 1963: the 1956 dollar
lost 11.1% of its purchasing power over
these 7 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
Every 1956 amount converts to 1963 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,125, and $10,000 becomes $11,250.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.63
$10.00
$11.25
$20.00
$22.50
$50.00
$56.25
$100
$113
$500
$563
$1,000
$1,125
$5,000
$5,625
$10,000
$11,250
$100,000
$112,500
$1,000,000
$1,125,000
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1963
Between 1956 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 27.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.3%, against 12.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.70%
$113
Medical care
3.53%
$128
Transportation
2.39%
$118
Food
1.51%
$111
Apparel
1.01%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1956: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1956 to 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.14% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $107 by
1959, on its way to $113 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 the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $113; 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 1956 to 1963: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1963/