$100 in 1963 is worth $701 in 2009,
because prices increased 601.1% over that period, an average of
4.32% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$701
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
601.1%
Average inflation rate
4.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$701
Price difference ($100 base)
$601
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1963 → 2009
$701
$100 in 2009 → 1963
$14.26
What happened to prices between 1963 and 2009
Between 1963 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 601.1%, which works out to an average of
4.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2009: the 1963 dollar
lost 85.7% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 2009 at the same ratio, 7.01: $1,000 becomes
$7,011, and $10,000 becomes $70,110.
Amount in 1963
Value in 2009
$1.00
$7.01
$5.00
$35.06
$10.00
$70.11
$20.00
$140
$50.00
$351
$100
$701
$500
$3,506
$1,000
$7,011
$5,000
$35,055
$10,000
$70,110
$100,000
$701,101
$1,000,000
$7,011,013
Inflation by spending category, 1963–2009
Between 1963 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1458.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 156.0%, against 601.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.32%
$701
Medical care
6.15%
$1,559
Energy
4.77%
$855
Food
4.32%
$701
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.29%
$689
Transportation
3.90%
$580
Apparel
2.06%
$256
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1963 to 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1963–2009 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$427
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$563
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$701
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $352 by
1985, on its way to $701 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $701; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 2009: $100 is worth $701 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2009/