$100 in 1960 is worth $501 in 1994,
because prices increased 400.7% over that period, an average of
4.85% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$501
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
400.7%
Average inflation rate
4.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$501
Price difference ($100 base)
$401
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1960 → 1994
$501
$100 in 1994 → 1960
$19.97
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1994
Between 1960 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 400.7%, which works out to an average of
4.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1994: the 1960 dollar
lost 80.0% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1994 at the same ratio, 5.01: $1,000 becomes
$5,007, and $10,000 becomes $50,068.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1994
$1.00
$5.01
$5.00
$25.03
$10.00
$50.07
$20.00
$100
$50.00
$250
$100
$501
$500
$2,503
$1,000
$5,007
$5,000
$25,034
$10,000
$50,068
$100,000
$500,676
$1,000,000
$5,006,757
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1994
Between 1960 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 846.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 191.9%, against 400.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.85%
$501
Medical care
6.83%
$946
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.92%
$511
Food
4.73%
$481
Energy
4.64%
$467
Transportation
4.53%
$451
Apparel
3.20%
$292
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 1994
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 1960–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$442
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$501
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $192 by
1976, on its way to $501 in 1994; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $501; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 1994: $100 is worth $501 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1994/