$100 in 1943 is worth $168 in 1959,
because prices increased 68.2% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$168
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
68.2%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$168
Price difference ($100 base)
$68.21
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1943 → 1959
$168
$100 in 1959 → 1943
$59.45
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1959
Between 1943 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 68.2%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1959: the 1943 dollar
lost 40.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.68: $1,000 becomes
$1,682, and $10,000 becomes $16,821.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.68
$5.00
$8.41
$10.00
$16.82
$20.00
$33.64
$50.00
$84.10
$100
$168
$500
$841
$1,000
$1,682
$5,000
$8,410
$10,000
$16,821
$100,000
$168,208
$1,000,000
$1,682,081
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1959
Between 1943 and 1959, medical care rose the most, up 92.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 61.9%, against 68.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$168
Medical care
4.16%
$192
Transportation
4.00%
$187
Food
3.51%
$174
Apparel
3.06%
$162
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$168
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $150 by
1951, on its way to $168 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $168; 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 1943 to 1959: $100 is worth $168 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1959/