$100 in 1949 is worth $121 in 1958,
because prices increased 21.4% over that period, an average of
2.18% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$121
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
21.4%
Average inflation rate
2.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$121
Price difference ($100 base)
$21.43
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1949 → 1958
$121
$100 in 1958 → 1949
$82.35
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1958
Between 1949 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 21.4%, which works out to an average of
2.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1958: the 1949 dollar
lost 17.6% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1949 amount converts to 1958 at the same ratio, 1.21: $1,000 becomes
$1,214, and $10,000 becomes $12,143.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.21
$5.00
$6.07
$10.00
$12.14
$20.00
$24.29
$50.00
$60.71
$100
$121
$500
$607
$1,000
$1,214
$5,000
$6,071
$10,000
$12,143
$100,000
$121,429
$1,000,000
$1,214,286
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1958
Between 1949 and 1958, medical care rose the most, up 39.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.3%, against 21.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.18%
$121
Medical care
3.74%
$139
Transportation
2.91%
$129
Food
2.12%
$121
Apparel
0.99%
$109
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1949: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1949 to 1958
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.30% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1958 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1958
2.30%
19.9%
$121
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $112 by
1953, on its way to $121 in 1958; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $121; the year's average CPI of 28.9 is the level
behind every 1958 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1958: $100 is worth $121 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1958/