$100 in 1963 is worth $405 in 1989,
because prices increased 305.2% over that period, an average of
5.53% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$405
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
305.2%
Average inflation rate
5.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$405
Price difference ($100 base)
$305
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1963 → 1989
$405
$100 in 1989 → 1963
$24.68
What happened to prices between 1963 and 1989
Between 1963 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 305.2%, which works out to an average of
5.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1989: the 1963 dollar
lost 75.3% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.05: $1,000 becomes
$4,052, and $10,000 becomes $40,523.
Amount in 1963
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.05
$5.00
$20.26
$10.00
$40.52
$20.00
$81.05
$50.00
$203
$100
$405
$500
$2,026
$1,000
$4,052
$5,000
$20,261
$10,000
$40,523
$100,000
$405,229
$1,000,000
$4,052,288
Inflation by spending category, 1963–1989
Between 1963 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 519.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 152.9%, against 305.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.53%
$405
Medical care
7.27%
$620
Energy
5.65%
$417
Core (all items less food & energy)
5.53%
$406
Food
5.50%
$402
Transportation
5.15%
$369
Apparel
3.63%
$253
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1963 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (3.45% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1963–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$405
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $186 by
1976, on its way to $405 in 1989; 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 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $405; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 1989: $100 is worth $405 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-1989/