$100 in 1960 is worth $419 in 1989,
because prices increased 318.9% over that period, an average of
5.06% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$419
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
318.9%
Average inflation rate
5.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$419
Price difference ($100 base)
$319
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1960 → 1989
$419
$100 in 1989 → 1960
$23.87
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1989
Between 1960 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 318.9%, which works out to an average of
5.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1989: the 1960 dollar
lost 76.1% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.19: $1,000 becomes
$4,189, and $10,000 becomes $41,892.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.19
$5.00
$20.95
$10.00
$41.89
$20.00
$83.78
$50.00
$209
$100
$419
$500
$2,095
$1,000
$4,189
$5,000
$20,946
$10,000
$41,892
$100,000
$418,919
$1,000,000
$4,189,189
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1989
Between 1960 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 569.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 159.5%, against 318.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.06%
$419
Medical care
6.78%
$670
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.09%
$422
Energy
5.08%
$421
Food
5.05%
$417
Transportation
4.74%
$383
Apparel
3.34%
$260
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 1989
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 1960–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$419
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $167 by
1974, on its way to $419 in 1989; 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 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $419; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 1989: $100 is worth $419 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1989/