$100 in 1916 is worth $267 in 1959,
because prices increased 167.0% over that period, an average of
2.31% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$267
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
167.0%
Average inflation rate
2.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$267
Price difference ($100 base)
$167
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1916 → 1959
$267
$100 in 1959 → 1916
$37.46
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1959
Between 1916 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 167.0%, which works out to an average of
2.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1959: the 1916 dollar
lost 62.5% of its purchasing power over
these 43 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 2.67: $1,000 becomes
$2,670, and $10,000 becomes $26,697.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1959
$1.00
$2.67
$5.00
$13.35
$10.00
$26.70
$20.00
$53.39
$50.00
$133
$100
$267
$500
$1,335
$1,000
$2,670
$5,000
$13,349
$10,000
$26,697
$100,000
$266,972
$1,000,000
$2,669,725
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1959
Between 1916 and 1959, apparel rose the most, up 167.9%, while food rose the least, up 162.8%, against 167.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.31%
$267
Apparel
2.32%
$268
Food
2.27%
$263
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$267
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $129 by
1938, on its way to $267 in 1959; 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: 1959
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $267; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1959: $100 is worth $267 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1959/