$100 in 1953 is worth $105 in 1957,
because prices increased 5.2% over that period, an average of
1.29% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
5.2%
Average inflation rate
1.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$5.24
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1953 → 1957
$105
$100 in 1957 → 1953
$95.02
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1957
Between 1953 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 5.2%, which works out to an average of
1.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.95 buys in 1957: the 1953 dollar
lost 5.0% of its purchasing power over
these 4 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1953 amount converts to 1957 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,052, and $10,000 becomes $10,524.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.26
$10.00
$10.52
$20.00
$21.05
$50.00
$52.62
$100
$105
$500
$526
$1,000
$1,052
$5,000
$5,262
$10,000
$10,524
$100,000
$105,243
$1,000,000
$1,052,434
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1957
Between 1953 and 1957, medical care rose the most, up 13.9%, while food rose the least, up 2.1%, against 5.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.29%
$105
Medical care
3.30%
$114
Transportation
1.11%
$105
Apparel
0.80%
$103
Food
0.53%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1953: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $100 by
1955, on its way to $105 in 1957; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $105; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 1957: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1957/