$100 in 1926 is worth $164 in 1959,
because prices increased 64.4% over that period, an average of
1.52% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$164
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
64.4%
Average inflation rate
1.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$164
Price difference ($100 base)
$64.41
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1926 → 1959
$164
$100 in 1959 → 1926
$60.82
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1959
Between 1926 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 64.4%, which works out to an average of
1.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1959: the 1926 dollar
lost 39.2% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1959 at the same ratio, 1.64: $1,000 becomes
$1,644, and $10,000 becomes $16,441.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.64
$5.00
$8.22
$10.00
$16.44
$20.00
$32.88
$50.00
$82.20
$100
$164
$500
$822
$1,000
$1,644
$5,000
$8,220
$10,000
$16,441
$100,000
$164,407
$1,000,000
$1,644,068
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1959
Between 1926 and 1959, food rose the most, up 74.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 73.7%, against 64.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.52%
$164
Food
1.71%
$175
Apparel
1.69%
$174
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 1959
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 1926–1959 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
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$164
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 $164 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 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: 1959
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $164; 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 1926 to 1959: $100 is worth $164 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1959/