$100 in 1960 is worth $351 in 1984,
because prices increased 251.0% over that period, an average of
5.37% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$351
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
251.0%
Average inflation rate
5.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$351
Price difference ($100 base)
$251
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1960 → 1984
$351
$100 in 1984 → 1960
$28.49
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1984
Between 1960 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 251.0%, which works out to an average of
5.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1984: the 1960 dollar
lost 71.5% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1984 at the same ratio, 3.51: $1,000 becomes
$3,510, and $10,000 becomes $35,101.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1984
$1.00
$3.51
$5.00
$17.55
$10.00
$35.10
$20.00
$70.20
$50.00
$176
$100
$351
$500
$1,755
$1,000
$3,510
$5,000
$17,551
$10,000
$35,101
$100,000
$351,014
$1,000,000
$3,510,135
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1984
Between 1960 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 378.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 123.4%, against 251.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.37%
$351
Medical care
6.74%
$479
Energy
6.47%
$450
Transportation
5.33%
$348
Food
5.28%
$344
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.25%
$342
Apparel
3.41%
$223
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (2.74% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–1984 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1960, at end
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$131
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$278
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$351
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $141 by
1972, on its way to $351 in 1984; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $351; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 1984: $100 is worth $351 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1984/