$100 in 1960 is worth $638 in 2004,
because prices increased 538.2% over that period, an average of
4.30% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$638
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
538.2%
Average inflation rate
4.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$638
Price difference ($100 base)
$538
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1960 → 2004
$638
$100 in 2004 → 1960
$15.67
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2004
Between 1960 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 538.2%, which works out to an average of
4.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.16 buys in 2004: the 1960 dollar
lost 84.3% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 2004 at the same ratio, 6.38: $1,000 becomes
$6,382, and $10,000 becomes $63,818.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2004
$1.00
$6.38
$5.00
$31.91
$10.00
$63.82
$20.00
$128
$50.00
$319
$100
$638
$500
$3,191
$1,000
$6,382
$5,000
$31,909
$10,000
$63,818
$100,000
$638,176
$1,000,000
$6,381,757
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2004
Between 1960 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1290.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 163.5%, against 538.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.30%
$638
Medical care
6.17%
$1,391
Energy
4.44%
$676
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.32%
$642
Food
4.24%
$621
Transportation
3.94%
$547
Apparel
2.23%
$263
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2004
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.34% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2004 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$582
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$638
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $326 by
1982, on its way to $638 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $638; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2004: $100 is worth $638 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2004/