$100 in 1957 is worth $105 in 1960,
because prices increased 5.3% over that period, an average of
1.75% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
5.3%
Average inflation rate
1.75% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$5.34
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1957 → 1960
$105
$100 in 1960 → 1957
$94.93
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1960
Between 1957 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 5.3%, which works out to an average of
1.75% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.95 buys in 1960: the 1957 dollar
lost 5.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1957 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,053, and $10,000 becomes $10,534.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.27
$10.00
$10.53
$20.00
$21.07
$50.00
$52.67
$100
$105
$500
$527
$1,000
$1,053
$5,000
$5,267
$10,000
$10,534
$100,000
$105,338
$1,000,000
$1,053,381
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1960
Between 1957 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 13.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 2.7%, against 5.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.75%
$105
Medical care
4.22%
$113
Transportation
2.47%
$108
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.92%
$106
Energy
1.38%
$104
Food
1.25%
$104
Apparel
0.89%
$103
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $103 by
1958, on its way to $105 in 1960; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.8% in 1958, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $105; 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 1957 to 1960: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1960/