$100 in 1963 is worth $846 in 2020,
because prices increased 745.8% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1963 has
the same buying power as
$846
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
745.8%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$846
Price difference ($100 base)
$746
CPI in 1963
30.6
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1963 → 2020
$846
$100 in 2020 → 1963
$11.82
What happened to prices between 1963 and 2020
Between 1963 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 30.6 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 745.8%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1963 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2020: the 1963 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 2020 at the same ratio, 8.46: $1,000 becomes
$8,458, and $10,000 becomes $84,579.
Amount in 1963
Value in 2020
$1.00
$8.46
$5.00
$42.29
$10.00
$84.58
$20.00
$169
$50.00
$423
$100
$846
$500
$4,229
$1,000
$8,458
$5,000
$42,289
$10,000
$84,579
$100,000
$845,788
$1,000,000
$8,457,876
Inflation by spending category, 1963–2020
Between 1963 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2053.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 151.8%, against 745.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1963
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1963 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$846
Medical care
5.53%
$2,153
Energy
3.87%
$871
Food
3.85%
$859
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.81%
$842
Transportation
3.34%
$652
Apparel
1.63%
$252
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1963: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1963 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1963–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$846
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1963
$100 from 1963 had already become $445 by
1991, on its way to $846 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1963 had the buying
power of $846; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1963 to 2020: $100 is worth $846 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1963 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1963-to-2020/