$100 in 1951 is worth $477 in 1989,
because prices increased 376.9% over that period, an average of
4.20% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$477
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
376.9%
Average inflation rate
4.20% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$477
Price difference ($100 base)
$377
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1951 → 1989
$477
$100 in 1989 → 1951
$20.97
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1989
Between 1951 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 376.9%, which works out to an average of
4.20% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1989: the 1951 dollar
lost 79.0% of its purchasing power over
these 38 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
Every 1951 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 4.77: $1,000 becomes
$4,769, and $10,000 becomes $47,692.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.77
$5.00
$23.85
$10.00
$47.69
$20.00
$95.38
$50.00
$238
$100
$477
$500
$2,385
$1,000
$4,769
$5,000
$23,846
$10,000
$47,692
$100,000
$476,923
$1,000,000
$4,769,231
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1989
Between 1951 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 839.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 170.2%, against 376.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.20%
$477
Medical care
6.07%
$939
Transportation
4.18%
$473
Food
4.00%
$444
Apparel
2.65%
$270
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1951 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.45% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1951–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1951, at end
1951–1960
1.45%
13.8%
$114
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$149
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$317
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$477
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $141 by
1969, on its way to $477 in 1989; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $477; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1951 to 1989: $100 is worth $477 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1989/