$100 in 1947 is worth $130 in 1959,
because prices increased 30.5% over that period, an average of
2.24% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$130
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
30.5%
Average inflation rate
2.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$130
Price difference ($100 base)
$30.49
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1947 → 1959
$130
$100 in 1959 → 1947
$76.63
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1959
Between 1947 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 30.5%, which works out to an average of
2.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1959: the 1947 dollar
lost 23.4% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1947 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.30: $1,000 becomes
$1,305, and $10,000 becomes $13,049.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.30
$5.00
$6.52
$10.00
$13.05
$20.00
$26.10
$50.00
$65.25
$100
$130
$500
$652
$1,000
$1,305
$5,000
$6,525
$10,000
$13,049
$100,000
$130,493
$1,000,000
$1,304,933
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1959
Between 1947 and 1959, transportation rose the most, up 61.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 12.8%, against 30.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.24%
$130
Transportation
4.05%
$161
Medical care
3.95%
$159
Food
1.76%
$123
Apparel
1.01%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1947: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1947 to 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 2.62% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1947, at end
1947–1950
2.62%
8.1%
$108
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$130
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $120 by
1953, on its way to $130 in 1959; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 8.1% in 1948, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $130; 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 1947 to 1959: $100 is worth $130 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1959/