$100 in 1959 is worth $102 in 1960,
because prices increased 1.7% over that period, an average of
1.72% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1960
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.7%
Average inflation rate
1.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.72
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1960
29.6
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
$100 in 1959 → 1960
$102
$100 in 1960 → 1959
$98.31
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1960
Between 1959 and 1960, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 29.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.7%, which works out to an average of
1.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1960: the 1959 dollar
lost 1.7% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1959 amount converts to 1960 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,017, and $10,000 becomes $10,172.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1960
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.09
$10.00
$10.17
$20.00
$20.34
$50.00
$50.86
$100
$102
$500
$509
$1,000
$1,017
$5,000
$5,086
$10,000
$10,172
$100,000
$101,718
$1,000,000
$1,017,182
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1960
Between 1959 and 1960, medical care rose the most, up 3.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 0.0%, against 1.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1960, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.72%
$102
Medical care
3.72%
$104
Energy
2.28%
$102
Apparel
1.56%
$102
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.32%
$101
Food
1.01%
$101
Transportation
0.00%
$100
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959grew to $102 by 1960; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1960, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $102; 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 1959 to 1960: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1960/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1960. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1960/