$100 in 1923 is worth $164 in 1957,
because prices increased 64.3% over that period, an average of
1.47% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$164
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
64.3%
Average inflation rate
1.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$164
Price difference ($100 base)
$64.33
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1923 → 1957
$164
$100 in 1957 → 1923
$60.85
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1957
Between 1923 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 64.3%, which works out to an average of
1.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1957: the 1923 dollar
lost 39.1% of its purchasing power over
these 34 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1957 at the same ratio, 1.64: $1,000 becomes
$1,643, and $10,000 becomes $16,433.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.64
$5.00
$8.22
$10.00
$16.43
$20.00
$32.87
$50.00
$82.16
$100
$164
$500
$822
$1,000
$1,643
$5,000
$8,216
$10,000
$16,433
$100,000
$164,327
$1,000,000
$1,643,275
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1957
Between 1923 and 1957, food rose the most, up 87.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 64.2%, against 64.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.47%
$164
Food
1.87%
$188
Apparel
1.47%
$164
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$164
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $81.29 by
1939, on its way to $164 in 1957; 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 9.9% in 1932, 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 1923 had the buying
power of $164; 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 1923 to 1957: $100 is worth $164 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1957/