$100 in 1953 is worth $272 in 1979,
because prices increased 171.9% over that period, an average of
3.92% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$272
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
171.9%
Average inflation rate
3.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$272
Price difference ($100 base)
$172
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1953 → 1979
$272
$100 in 1979 → 1953
$36.78
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1979
Between 1953 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 171.9%, which works out to an average of
3.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1979: the 1953 dollar
lost 63.2% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.72: $1,000 becomes
$2,719, and $10,000 becomes $27,191.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.72
$5.00
$13.60
$10.00
$27.19
$20.00
$54.38
$50.00
$136
$100
$272
$500
$1,360
$1,000
$2,719
$5,000
$13,596
$10,000
$27,191
$100,000
$271,910
$1,000,000
$2,719,101
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1979
Between 1953 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 290.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 97.0%, against 171.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.92%
$272
Medical care
5.38%
$390
Food
4.07%
$282
Transportation
3.84%
$266
Apparel
2.64%
$197
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–).
Decade by decade: 1953 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.48% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1953–1979 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1953, at end
1953–1960
1.48%
10.9%
$111
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$145
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$272
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $121 by
1966, on its way to $272 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $272; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 1979: $100 is worth $272 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1979/