$100 in 1960 is worth $700 in 2007,
because prices increased 600.5% over that period, an average of
4.23% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$700
in 2007
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
600.5%
Average inflation rate
4.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$700
Price difference ($100 base)
$600
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2007
207.342
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2007
2.85%
$100 in 1960 → 2007
$700
$100 in 2007 → 1960
$14.28
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2007
Between 1960 and 2007, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 207.342.
Cumulatively, prices increased 600.5%, which works out to an average of
4.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2007: the 1960 dollar
lost 85.7% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 2007 at the same ratio, 7.00: $1,000 becomes
$7,005, and $10,000 becomes $70,048.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2007
$1.00
$7.00
$5.00
$35.02
$10.00
$70.05
$20.00
$140
$50.00
$350
$100
$700
$500
$3,502
$1,000
$7,005
$5,000
$35,024
$10,000
$70,048
$100,000
$700,480
$1,000,000
$7,004,797
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2007
Between 1960 and 2007, medical care rose the most, up 1474.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 160.4%, against 600.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2007, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.23%
$700
Medical care
6.04%
$1,574
Energy
4.85%
$927
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.19%
$689
Food
4.15%
$676
Transportation
3.96%
$620
Apparel
2.06%
$260
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2007
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2007 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
2000–2007
2.69%
20.4%
$700
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $351 by
1984, on its way to $700 in 2007; 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: 2007
In 2007, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $700; the year's average CPI of 207.342 is the level
behind every 2007 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.8% in 2007, with gasoline averaging $2.80 a gallon, but the year is better
known for what began underneath prices. In August, French bank BNP Paribas froze funds tied to
U.S. subprime mortgages, and credit between banks tightened. The Federal Reserve responded with
a half-point cut on September 18, its first in four years, and took the policy rate from 5.25% to
4.25% by December. The economy peaked that month, by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating, and the Great Recession followed. The median household earned about $50,200, and the
median new home cost $247,900. Congress ended the decade-long freeze on the federal minimum wage
in May, with the first of three steps to $5.85 in July. A first-class stamp cost 41 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2007: $100 is worth $700 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2007/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2007. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2007/