$100 in 1960 is worth $776 in 2012,
because prices increased 675.7% over that period, an average of
4.02% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$776
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
675.7%
Average inflation rate
4.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$776
Price difference ($100 base)
$676
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1960 → 2012
$776
$100 in 2012 → 1960
$12.89
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2012
Between 1960 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 675.7%, which works out to an average of
4.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2012: the 1960 dollar
lost 87.1% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 2012 at the same ratio, 7.76: $1,000 becomes
$7,757, and $10,000 becomes $77,566.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2012
$1.00
$7.76
$5.00
$38.78
$10.00
$77.57
$20.00
$155
$50.00
$388
$100
$776
$500
$3,878
$1,000
$7,757
$5,000
$38,783
$10,000
$77,566
$100,000
$775,655
$1,000,000
$7,756,554
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2012
Between 1960 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 1760.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 176.3%, against 675.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.02%
$776
Medical care
5.78%
$1,861
Energy
4.72%
$1,099
Food
4.03%
$779
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.95%
$751
Transportation
3.89%
$729
Apparel
1.97%
$276
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2012
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 1960–2012 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
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$776
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $370 by
1986, on its way to $776 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $776; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2012: $100 is worth $776 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2012/