$100 in 1953 is worth $108 in 1958,
because prices increased 8.2% over that period, an average of
1.60% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
8.2%
Average inflation rate
1.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$8.24
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1953 → 1958
$108
$100 in 1958 → 1953
$92.39
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1958
Between 1953 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 8.2%, which works out to an average of
1.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1958: the 1953 dollar
lost 7.6% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1958 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,082, and $10,000 becomes $10,824.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.41
$10.00
$10.82
$20.00
$21.65
$50.00
$54.12
$100
$108
$500
$541
$1,000
$1,082
$5,000
$5,412
$10,000
$10,824
$100,000
$108,240
$1,000,000
$1,082,397
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1958
Between 1953 and 1958, medical care rose the most, up 19.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 3.5%, against 8.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.60%
$108
Medical care
3.55%
$119
Transportation
1.54%
$108
Food
1.31%
$107
Apparel
0.69%
$103
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 $108 in 1958; 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 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $108; 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 1953 to 1958: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1958/