$100 in 1963 is worth $735 in 2011,
because prices increased 635.1% over that period, an average of
4.24% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$735
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
635.1%
Average inflation rate
4.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$735
Price difference ($100 base)
$635
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1963 → 2011
$735
$100 in 2011 → 1963
$13.60
What happened to prices between 1963 and 2011
Between 1963 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 635.1%, which works out to an average of
4.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2011: the 1963 dollar
lost 86.4% of its purchasing power over
these 48 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 2011 at the same ratio, 7.35: $1,000 becomes
$7,351, and $10,000 becomes $73,509.
Amount in 1963
Value in 2011
$1.00
$7.35
$5.00
$36.75
$10.00
$73.51
$20.00
$147
$50.00
$368
$100
$735
$500
$3,675
$1,000
$7,351
$5,000
$36,755
$10,000
$73,509
$100,000
$735,095
$1,000,000
$7,350,948
Inflation by spending category, 1963–2011
Between 1963 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1560.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 160.4%, against 635.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.24%
$735
Medical care
6.03%
$1,661
Energy
5.08%
$1,079
Food
4.24%
$733
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.16%
$708
Transportation
4.10%
$687
Apparel
2.01%
$260
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1963 to 2011
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2000s (2.39% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1963–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$713
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$735
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $371 by
1987, on its way to $735 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $735; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 2011: $100 is worth $735 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2011/