Between 1961 and 1990, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.9 to 130.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 337.1%, which works out to an average of
5.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1961 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1990.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1961 spending costs in 1990, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1961 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.22%
$437
Medical care
7.00%
$711
Energy
5.35%
$454
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.22%
$437
Food
5.20%
$436
Transportation
4.90%
$400
Apparel
3.47%
$269
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1961: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
In 1990, the median U.S. household earned about $29,900, gas averaged $1.15 a
gallon, and mailing a letter cost a quarter. Inflation ran hot at 5.4% for the
year, its highest rate since 1982, pushed up by an oil shock after Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, and the economy tipped into recession that summer. It was
the last gasp of elevated inflation before the long calm of the 1990s.
MLA: “Inflation from 1961 to 1990: $100 is worth $437 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1961-to-1990/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1961 to 1990. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1961-to-1990/