$100 in 1953 is worth $464 in 1989,
because prices increased 364.4% over that period, an average of
4.36% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$464
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
364.4%
Average inflation rate
4.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$464
Price difference ($100 base)
$364
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1953 → 1989
$464
$100 in 1989 → 1953
$21.53
What happened to prices between 1953 and 1989
Between 1953 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 364.4%, which works out to an average of
4.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.22 buys in 1989: the 1953 dollar
lost 78.5% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.64: $1,000 becomes
$4,644, and $10,000 becomes $46,442.
Amount in 1953
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.64
$5.00
$23.22
$10.00
$46.44
$20.00
$92.88
$50.00
$232
$100
$464
$500
$2,322
$1,000
$4,644
$5,000
$23,221
$10,000
$46,442
$100,000
$464,419
$1,000,000
$4,644,195
Inflation by spending category, 1953–1989
Between 1953 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 763.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 175.2%, against 364.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.36%
$464
Medical care
6.17%
$863
Food
4.21%
$442
Transportation
4.14%
$431
Apparel
2.85%
$275
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.48% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1953–1989 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$309
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$464
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $152 by
1971, on its way to $464 in 1989; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $464; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 1989: $100 is worth $464 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-1989/