$100 in 1927 is worth $167 in 1959,
because prices increased 67.2% over that period, an average of
1.62% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$167
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
67.2%
Average inflation rate
1.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$167
Price difference ($100 base)
$67.24
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1927 → 1959
$167
$100 in 1959 → 1927
$59.79
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1959
Between 1927 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 67.2%, which works out to an average of
1.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$0.60 buys in 1959: the 1927 dollar
lost 40.2% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.67: $1,000 becomes
$1,672, and $10,000 becomes $16,724.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.67
$5.00
$8.36
$10.00
$16.72
$20.00
$33.45
$50.00
$83.62
$100
$167
$500
$836
$1,000
$1,672
$5,000
$8,362
$10,000
$16,724
$100,000
$167,241
$1,000,000
$1,672,414
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1959
Between 1927 and 1959, food rose the most, up 81.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 77.9%, against 67.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.62%
$167
Food
1.87%
$181
Apparel
1.82%
$178
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 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 1927–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.46
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$167
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $99.43 by
1943, on its way to $167 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 1927 had the buying
power of $167; 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 1927 to 1959: $100 is worth $167 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1959/