$100 in 1960 is worth $660 in 2005,
because prices increased 559.8% over that period, an average of
4.28% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$660
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
559.8%
Average inflation rate
4.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$660
Price difference ($100 base)
$560
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1960 → 2005
$660
$100 in 2005 → 1960
$15.16
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2005
Between 1960 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 559.8%, which works out to an average of
4.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2005: the 1960 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 2005 at the same ratio, 6.60: $1,000 becomes
$6,598, and $10,000 becomes $65,980.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2005
$1.00
$6.60
$5.00
$32.99
$10.00
$65.98
$20.00
$132
$50.00
$330
$100
$660
$500
$3,299
$1,000
$6,598
$5,000
$32,990
$10,000
$65,980
$100,000
$659,797
$1,000,000
$6,597,973
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2005
Between 1960 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 1349.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 161.5%, against 559.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.28%
$660
Medical care
6.12%
$1,449
Energy
4.70%
$791
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.27%
$657
Food
4.20%
$636
Transportation
4.00%
$584
Apparel
2.16%
$261
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2005
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.55% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$660
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $326 by
1982, on its way to $660 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $660; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2005: $100 is worth $660 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2005/