$100 in 1953 is worth $109 in 1959,
because prices increased 9.0% over that period, an average of
1.44% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$109
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.0%
Average inflation rate
1.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$109
Price difference ($100 base)
$8.99
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1953 → 1959
$109
$100 in 1959 → 1953
$91.75
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1959
Between 1953 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.0%, which works out to an average of
1.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1959: the 1953 dollar
lost 8.2% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1959 at the same ratio, 1.09: $1,000 becomes
$1,090, and $10,000 becomes $10,899.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.09
$5.00
$5.45
$10.00
$10.90
$20.00
$21.80
$50.00
$54.49
$100
$109
$500
$545
$1,000
$1,090
$5,000
$5,449
$10,000
$10,899
$100,000
$108,989
$1,000,000
$1,089,888
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1959
Between 1953 and 1959, medical care rose the most, up 24.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.4%, against 9.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.44%
$109
Medical care
3.69%
$124
Transportation
1.98%
$112
Food
0.81%
$105
Apparel
0.72%
$104
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 $102 by
1956, on its way to $109 in 1959; 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 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $109; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 1959: $100 is worth $109 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1959/