$100 in 1960 is worth $737 in 2010,
because prices increased 636.7% over that period, an average of
4.07% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$737
in 2010
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
636.7%
Average inflation rate
4.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$737
Price difference ($100 base)
$637
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2010
218.056
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2010
1.64%
$100 in 1960 → 2010
$737
$100 in 2010 → 1960
$13.57
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2010
Between 1960 and 2010, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 218.056.
Cumulatively, prices increased 636.7%, which works out to an average of
4.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2010: the 1960 dollar
lost 86.4% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 2010 at the same ratio, 7.37: $1,000 becomes
$7,367, and $10,000 becomes $73,668.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2010
$1.00
$7.37
$5.00
$36.83
$10.00
$73.67
$20.00
$147
$50.00
$368
$100
$737
$500
$3,683
$1,000
$7,367
$5,000
$36,834
$10,000
$73,668
$100,000
$736,676
$1,000,000
$7,366,757
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2010
Between 1960 and 2010, medical care rose the most, up 1641.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 161.5%, against 636.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2010, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.07%
$737
Medical care
5.88%
$1,742
Energy
4.59%
$944
Food
4.06%
$732
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.04%
$723
Transportation
3.81%
$649
Apparel
1.94%
$261
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2010
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2010 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$737
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $351 by
1984, on its way to $737 in 2010; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2010
In 2010, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $737; the year's average CPI of 218.056 is the level
behind every 2010 figure on this page.
2010 was a year of recovery without much price pressure. The CPI rose 1.6%, a
return to growth after 2009’s deflation, with gasoline averaging $2.78 a
gallon as energy prices climbed back from their recession lows. Housing costs
barely moved: millions of foreclosed and vacant homes kept rents soft, and the
median new home sold for about $221,800. The federal minimum wage stayed at
$7.25, the level set in July 2009, and a first-class stamp cost 44 cents.
The Federal Reserve was more worried about too little inflation than too
much. Its policy rate sat at 0–0.25%, and in November it announced a further
$600 billion of Treasury purchases to hold down long-term borrowing costs.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July to tighten financial regulation,
while a 110 billion euro rescue of Greece in May showed that the crisis had
moved from American mortgages to European government debt. For anyone
comparing dollars across the decade, 2010 is a useful baseline: prices were
still close to their 2008 levels, and the years ahead brought a slow, steady
climb.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2010: $100 is worth $737 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2010/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2010. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2010/