$100 in 1936 is worth $209 in 1959,
because prices increased 109.4% over that period, an average of
3.26% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$209
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
109.4%
Average inflation rate
3.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$209
Price difference ($100 base)
$109
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1936 → 1959
$209
$100 in 1959 → 1936
$47.77
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1959
Between 1936 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 109.4%, which works out to an average of
3.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1959: the 1936 dollar
lost 52.2% of its purchasing power over
these 23 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 2.09: $1,000 becomes
$2,094, and $10,000 becomes $20,935.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1959
$1.00
$2.09
$5.00
$10.47
$10.00
$20.94
$20.00
$41.87
$50.00
$105
$100
$209
$500
$1,047
$1,000
$2,094
$5,000
$10,468
$10,000
$20,935
$100,000
$209,353
$1,000,000
$2,093,525
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1959
Between 1936 and 1959, food rose the most, up 135.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 108.4%, against 109.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.26%
$209
Food
3.80%
$236
Apparel
3.37%
$214
Medical care
3.30%
$211
Transportation
3.24%
$208
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$209
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $160 by
1947, on its way to $209 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1936 had the buying
power of $209; 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 1936 to 1959: $100 is worth $209 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1959/