Between 1961 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.9 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 878.8%, which works out to an average of
3.81% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1961 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2022.
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 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1961 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.81%
$979
Medical care
5.34%
$2,387
Energy
4.33%
$1,326
Food
3.85%
$1,005
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.76%
$949
Transportation
3.64%
$885
Apparel
1.68%
$276
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1961: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2022
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1961 to 2022: $100 is worth $979 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1961-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1961 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1961-to-2022/