$100 in 1951 is worth $865 in 2011,
because prices increased 765.2% over that period, an average of
3.66% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$865
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
765.2%
Average inflation rate
3.66% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$865
Price difference ($100 base)
$765
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1951 → 2011
$865
$100 in 2011 → 1951
$11.56
What happened to prices between 1951 and 2011
Between 1951 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 765.2%, which works out to an average of
3.66% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1951 dollar
lost 88.4% of its purchasing power over
these 60 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.65: $1,000 becomes
$8,652, and $10,000 becomes $86,515.
Amount in 1951
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.65
$5.00
$43.26
$10.00
$86.52
$20.00
$173
$50.00
$433
$100
$865
$500
$4,326
$1,000
$8,652
$5,000
$43,258
$10,000
$86,515
$100,000
$865,150
$1,000,000
$8,651,500
Inflation by spending category, 1951–2011
Between 1951 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2417.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.2%, against 765.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.66%
$865
Medical care
5.52%
$2,517
Transportation
3.69%
$881
Food
3.54%
$808
Apparel
1.72%
$278
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 2011
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 1951–2011 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$503
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$662
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$839
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$865
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $350 by
1981, on its way to $865 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $865; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1951 to 2011: $100 is worth $865 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2011/