$100 in 1944 is worth $165 in 1959,
because prices increased 65.3% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$165
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
65.3%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$165
Price difference ($100 base)
$65.34
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1944 → 1959
$165
$100 in 1959 → 1944
$60.48
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1959
Between 1944 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 65.3%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.60 buys in 1959: the 1944 dollar
lost 39.5% of its purchasing power over
these 15 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.65: $1,000 becomes
$1,653, and $10,000 becomes $16,534.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.65
$5.00
$8.27
$10.00
$16.53
$20.00
$33.07
$50.00
$82.67
$100
$165
$500
$827
$1,000
$1,653
$5,000
$8,267
$10,000
$16,534
$100,000
$165,341
$1,000,000
$1,653,409
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1959
Between 1944 and 1959, transportation rose the most, up 87.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 51.0%, against 65.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$165
Transportation
4.28%
$187
Medical care
4.20%
$185
Food
3.83%
$176
Apparel
2.79%
$151
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$165
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $148 by
1951, on its way to $165 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 1944 had the buying
power of $165; 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 1944 to 1959: $100 is worth $165 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1959/