$100 in 1920 is worth $146 in 1959,
because prices increased 45.5% over that period, an average of
0.97% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$146
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
45.5%
Average inflation rate
0.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$146
Price difference ($100 base)
$45.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1920 → 1959
$146
$100 in 1959 → 1920
$68.73
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1959
Between 1920 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 45.5%, which works out to an average of
0.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.69 buys in 1959: the 1920 dollar
lost 31.3% of its purchasing power over
these 39 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.46: $1,000 becomes
$1,455, and $10,000 becomes $14,550.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.46
$5.00
$7.28
$10.00
$14.55
$20.00
$29.10
$50.00
$72.75
$100
$146
$500
$728
$1,000
$1,455
$5,000
$7,275
$10,000
$14,550
$100,000
$145,500
$1,000,000
$1,455,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1959
Between 1920 and 1959, food rose the most, up 41.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.4%, against 45.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.97%
$146
Food
0.89%
$141
Apparel
0.11%
$104
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$146
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $70.00 by
1940, on its way to $146 in 1959; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, 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 1920 had the buying
power of $146; 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 1920 to 1959: $100 is worth $146 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1959/