$100 in 1945 is worth $162 in 1959,
because prices increased 61.7% over that period, an average of
3.49% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$162
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
61.7%
Average inflation rate
3.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$162
Price difference ($100 base)
$61.67
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1945 → 1959
$162
$100 in 1959 → 1945
$61.86
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1959
Between 1945 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 61.7%, which works out to an average of
3.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1959: the 1945 dollar
lost 38.1% of its purchasing power over
these 14 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.62: $1,000 becomes
$1,617, and $10,000 becomes $16,167.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.62
$5.00
$8.08
$10.00
$16.17
$20.00
$32.33
$50.00
$80.83
$100
$162
$500
$808
$1,000
$1,617
$5,000
$8,083
$10,000
$16,167
$100,000
$161,667
$1,000,000
$1,616,667
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1959
Between 1945 and 1959, transportation rose the most, up 87.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 43.3%, against 61.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.49%
$162
Transportation
4.59%
$187
Medical care
4.32%
$181
Food
3.94%
$172
Apparel
2.60%
$143
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$162
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $147 by
1952, on its way to $162 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 1945 had the buying
power of $162; 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 1945 to 1959: $100 is worth $162 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1959/