$100 in 1913 is worth $284 in 1957,
because prices increased 183.8% over that period, an average of
2.40% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$284
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
183.8%
Average inflation rate
2.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$284
Price difference ($100 base)
$184
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1913 → 1957
$284
$100 in 1957 → 1913
$35.23
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1957
Between 1913 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 183.8%, which works out to an average of
2.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1957: the 1913 dollar
lost 64.8% of its purchasing power over
these 44 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1957 at the same ratio, 2.84: $1,000 becomes
$2,838, and $10,000 becomes $28,384.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1957
$1.00
$2.84
$5.00
$14.19
$10.00
$28.38
$20.00
$56.77
$50.00
$142
$100
$284
$500
$1,419
$1,000
$2,838
$5,000
$14,192
$10,000
$28,384
$100,000
$283,838
$1,000,000
$2,838,384
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1957
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.40%
$284
Food
2.44%
$289
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$284
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $138 by
1935, on its way to $284 in 1957; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1957
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $284; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1957: $100 is worth $284 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1957/