$100 in 1960 is worth $681 in 2006,
because prices increased 581.1% over that period, an average of
4.26% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$681
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
581.1%
Average inflation rate
4.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$681
Price difference ($100 base)
$581
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1960 → 2006
$681
$100 in 2006 → 1960
$14.68
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2006
Between 1960 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 581.1%, which works out to an average of
4.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2006: the 1960 dollar
lost 85.3% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 2006 at the same ratio, 6.81: $1,000 becomes
$6,811, and $10,000 becomes $68,108.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2006
$1.00
$6.81
$5.00
$34.05
$10.00
$68.11
$20.00
$136
$50.00
$341
$100
$681
$500
$3,405
$1,000
$6,811
$5,000
$34,054
$10,000
$68,108
$100,000
$681,081
$1,000,000
$6,810,811
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2006
Between 1960 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 1407.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 161.5%, against 581.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.26%
$681
Medical care
6.08%
$1,508
Energy
4.84%
$879
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.23%
$673
Food
4.16%
$651
Transportation
4.00%
$607
Apparel
2.11%
$261
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2006
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.66% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$681
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $326 by
1982, on its way to $681 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $681; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2006: $100 is worth $681 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2006/