$100 in 1951 is worth $995 in 2020,
because prices increased 895.4% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$995
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
895.4%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$995
Price difference ($100 base)
$895
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1951 → 2020
$995
$100 in 2020 → 1951
$10.05
What happened to prices between 1951 and 2020
Between 1951 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 895.4%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2020: the 1951 dollar
lost 90.0% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.95: $1,000 becomes
$9,954, and $10,000 becomes $99,543.
Amount in 1951
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.95
$5.00
$49.77
$10.00
$99.54
$20.00
$199
$50.00
$498
$100
$995
$500
$4,977
$1,000
$9,954
$5,000
$49,771
$10,000
$99,543
$100,000
$995,427
$1,000,000
$9,954,269
Inflation by spending category, 1951–2020
Between 1951 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 3163.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 169.0%, against 895.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$995
Medical care
5.18%
$3,263
Food
3.31%
$948
Transportation
3.12%
$835
Apparel
1.44%
$269
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 2020
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 1951–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$995
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $422 by
1986, on its way to $995 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $995; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1951 to 2020: $100 is worth $995 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-2020/