$100 in 1960 is worth $103 in 1963,
because prices increased 3.4% over that period, an average of
1.11% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$103
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.4%
Average inflation rate
1.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$103
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.38
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1960 → 1963
$103
$100 in 1963 → 1960
$96.73
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1963
Between 1960 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.4%, which works out to an average of
1.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1963: the 1960 dollar
lost 3.3% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
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.
Every 1960 amount converts to 1963 at the same ratio, 1.03: $1,000 becomes
$1,034, and $10,000 becomes $10,338.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.03
$5.00
$5.17
$10.00
$10.34
$20.00
$20.68
$50.00
$51.69
$100
$103
$500
$517
$1,000
$1,034
$5,000
$5,169
$10,000
$10,338
$100,000
$103,378
$1,000,000
$1,033,784
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1963
Between 1960 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 8.1%, while energy rose the least, up 0.9%, against 3.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.11%
$103
Medical care
2.62%
$108
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.29%
$104
Transportation
1.22%
$104
Food
1.21%
$104
Apparel
0.87%
$103
Energy
0.30%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $101 by
1961, on its way to $103 in 1963; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.3% in 1963, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $103; 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 1960 to 1963: $100 is worth $103 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1963/