$100 in 1960 is worth $124 in 1969,
because prices increased 24.0% over that period, an average of
2.42% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$124
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
24.0%
Average inflation rate
2.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$124
Price difference ($100 base)
$23.99
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1960 → 1969
$124
$100 in 1969 → 1960
$80.65
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1969
Between 1960 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 24.0%, which works out to an average of
2.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1969: the 1960 dollar
lost 19.3% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.24: $1,000 becomes
$1,240, and $10,000 becomes $12,399.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.24
$5.00
$6.20
$10.00
$12.40
$20.00
$24.80
$50.00
$61.99
$100
$124
$500
$620
$1,000
$1,240
$5,000
$6,199
$10,000
$12,399
$100,000
$123,986
$1,000,000
$1,239,865
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1969
Between 1960 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 43.0%, while energy rose the least, up 10.7%, against 24.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.42%
$124
Medical care
4.06%
$143
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.55%
$125
Apparel
2.45%
$124
Food
2.39%
$124
Transportation
2.03%
$120
Energy
1.14%
$111
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 $105 by
1964, on its way to $124 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $124; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 1969: $100 is worth $124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1969/