$100 in 1926 is worth $159 in 1957,
because prices increased 58.8% over that period, an average of
1.50% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$159
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
58.8%
Average inflation rate
1.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$159
Price difference ($100 base)
$58.76
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1926 → 1957
$159
$100 in 1957 → 1926
$62.99
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1957
Between 1926 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 58.8%, which works out to an average of
1.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1957: the 1926 dollar
lost 37.0% of its purchasing power over
these 31 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1957 at the same ratio, 1.59: $1,000 becomes
$1,588, and $10,000 becomes $15,876.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.59
$5.00
$7.94
$10.00
$15.88
$20.00
$31.75
$50.00
$79.38
$100
$159
$500
$794
$1,000
$1,588
$5,000
$7,938
$10,000
$15,876
$100,000
$158,757
$1,000,000
$1,587,571
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1957
Between 1926 and 1957, apparel rose the most, up 71.8%, while food rose the least, up 70.0%, against 58.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.50%
$159
Apparel
1.76%
$172
Food
1.73%
$170
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$159
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $92.09 by
1942, on its way to $159 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 1926 had the buying
power of $159; 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 1926 to 1957: $100 is worth $159 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1957/