$100 in 1960 is worth $1,029 in 2023,
because prices increased 929.4% over that period, an average of
3.77% a year.
$100 in 1960 has
the same buying power as
$1,029
in 2023
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
929.4%
Average inflation rate
3.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,029
Price difference ($100 base)
$929
CPI in 1960
29.6
CPI in 2023
304.702
Inflation in 1960
1.72%
Inflation in 2023
4.12%
$100 in 1960 → 2023
$1,029
$100 in 2023 → 1960
$9.71
What happened to prices between 1960 and 2023
Between 1960 and 2023, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.6 to 304.702.
Cumulatively, prices increased 929.4%, which works out to an average of
3.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1960 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2023: the 1960 dollar
lost 90.3% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2023 at the same ratio, 10.29: $1,000 becomes
$10,294, and $10,000 becomes $102,940.
Amount in 1960
Value in 2023
$1.00
$10.29
$5.00
$51.47
$10.00
$103
$20.00
$206
$50.00
$515
$100
$1,029
$500
$5,147
$1,000
$10,294
$5,000
$51,470
$10,000
$102,940
$100,000
$1,029,399
$1,000,000
$10,293,986
Inflation by spending category, 1960–2023
Between 1960 and 2023, medical care rose the most, up 2362.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 185.7%, against 929.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1960
spending costs in 2023, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1960 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.77%
$1,029
Medical care
5.22%
$2,462
Energy
4.11%
$1,265
Food
3.84%
$1,077
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.74%
$1,008
Transportation
3.54%
$896
Apparel
1.68%
$286
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1960: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1960 to 2023
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1960–2023 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$874
2020–2023
5.59%
17.7%
$1,029
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1960
$100 from 1960 had already become $442 by
1990, on its way to $1,029 in 2023; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2023
In 2023, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1960 had the buying
power of $1,029; the year's average CPI of 304.702 is the level
behind every 2023 figure on this page.
2023 was the year inflation came down without a recession. Consumer prices
rose 4.1% on average, roughly half of 2022’s 8.0%, and the December-to-December
rate fell to 3.4%. Gasoline averaged $3.52 a gallon, well below the 2022
average, and supply-chain pressure on goods eased. Shelter, restaurant meals,
and other services stayed expensive, so the CPI kept rising at a rate well
above the pre-pandemic pace.
The Federal Reserve completed its rate-hiking campaign in July, taking the
policy rate to 5.25–5.50%, the highest level in 22 years. The effects showed
up in banking: Silicon Valley Bank failed in March after rate increases eroded
the value of its bond portfolio, the second-largest bank failure in U.S.
history at the time. Despite that, unemployment stayed under 4% all year.
Median household income was $80,610 according to the Census Bureau. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp rose to 66 cents
in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1960 to 2023: $100 is worth $1,029 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2023/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1960 to 2023. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1960-to-2023/