$100 in 1963 is worth $120 in 1969,
because prices increased 19.9% over that period, an average of
3.08% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$120
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
19.9%
Average inflation rate
3.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$120
Price difference ($100 base)
$19.93
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1963 → 1969
$120
$100 in 1969 → 1963
$83.38
What happened to prices between 1963 and 1969
Between 1963 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 19.9%, which works out to an average of
3.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.83 buys in 1969: the 1963 dollar
lost 16.6% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
Every 1963 amount converts to 1969 at the same ratio, 1.20: $1,000 becomes
$1,199, and $10,000 becomes $11,993.
Amount in 1963
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.20
$5.00
$6.00
$10.00
$11.99
$20.00
$23.99
$50.00
$59.97
$100
$120
$500
$600
$1,000
$1,199
$5,000
$5,997
$10,000
$11,993
$100,000
$119,935
$1,000,000
$1,199,346
Inflation by spending category, 1963–1969
Between 1963 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 32.4%, while energy rose the least, up 9.7%, against 19.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.08%
$120
Medical care
4.78%
$132
Apparel
3.24%
$121
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.19%
$121
Food
2.98%
$119
Transportation
2.44%
$116
Energy
1.56%
$110
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $106 by
1966, on its way to $120 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $120; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 1969: $100 is worth $120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1969/