$100 in 1960 is worth $551 in 1998,
because prices increased 450.7% over that period, an average of
4.59% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$551
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
450.7%
Average inflation rate
4.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$551
Price difference ($100 base)
$451
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1960 → 1998
$551
$100 in 1998 → 1960
$18.16
What happened to prices between 1960 and 1998
Between 1960 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 450.7%, which works out to an average of
4.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1998: the 1960 dollar
lost 81.8% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 1998 at the same ratio, 5.51: $1,000 becomes
$5,507, and $10,000 becomes $55,068.
Amount in 1960
Value in 1998
$1.00
$5.51
$5.00
$27.53
$10.00
$55.07
$20.00
$110
$50.00
$275
$100
$551
$500
$2,753
$1,000
$5,507
$5,000
$27,534
$10,000
$55,068
$100,000
$550,676
$1,000,000
$5,506,757
Inflation by spending category, 1960–1998
Between 1960 and 1998, medical care rose the most, up 985.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 191.0%, against 450.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.59%
$551
Medical care
6.48%
$1,086
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.67%
$567
Food
4.52%
$536
Transportation
4.19%
$475
Energy
4.09%
$459
Apparel
2.85%
$291
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 1998
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 1960–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$551
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $220 by
1978, on its way to $551 in 1998; 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: 1998
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $551; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 1998: $100 is worth $551 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-1998/