$100 in 1963 is worth $315 in 1982,
because prices increased 215.4% over that period, an average of
6.23% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$315
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
215.4%
Average inflation rate
6.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$315
Price difference ($100 base)
$215
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1963 → 1982
$315
$100 in 1982 → 1963
$31.71
What happened to prices between 1963 and 1982
Between 1963 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 215.4%, which works out to an average of
6.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.32 buys in 1982: the 1963 dollar
lost 68.3% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1982 at the same ratio, 3.15: $1,000 becomes
$3,154, and $10,000 becomes $31,536.
Amount in 1963
Value in 1982
$1.00
$3.15
$5.00
$15.77
$10.00
$31.54
$20.00
$63.07
$50.00
$158
$100
$315
$500
$1,577
$1,000
$3,154
$5,000
$15,768
$10,000
$31,536
$100,000
$315,359
$1,000,000
$3,153,595
Inflation by spending category, 1963–1982
Between 1963 and 1982, energy rose the most, up 338.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 108.5%, against 215.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.23%
$315
Energy
8.10%
$439
Medical care
7.34%
$384
Transportation
6.21%
$314
Food
6.19%
$313
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.98%
$301
Apparel
3.94%
$209
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1963 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (3.45% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1963–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1963, at end
1963–1970
3.45%
26.8%
$127
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$269
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$315
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $137 by
1972, on its way to $315 in 1982; 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 the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1964.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $315; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 1982: $100 is worth $315 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1982/