$100 in 1953 is worth $707 in 2004,
because prices increased 607.5% over that period, an average of
3.91% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$707
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
607.5%
Average inflation rate
3.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$707
Price difference ($100 base)
$607
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1953 → 2004
$707
$100 in 2004 → 1953
$14.13
What happened to prices between 1953 and 2004
Between 1953 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 607.5%, which works out to an average of
3.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2004: the 1953 dollar
lost 85.9% of its purchasing power over
these 51 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 2004 at the same ratio, 7.07: $1,000 becomes
$7,075, and $10,000 becomes $70,749.
Amount in 1953
Value in 2004
$1.00
$7.07
$5.00
$35.37
$10.00
$70.75
$20.00
$141
$50.00
$354
$100
$707
$500
$3,537
$1,000
$7,075
$5,000
$35,375
$10,000
$70,749
$100,000
$707,491
$1,000,000
$7,074,906
Inflation by spending category, 1953–2004
Between 1953 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1692.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 179.4%, against 607.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.91%
$707
Medical care
5.82%
$1,792
Food
3.76%
$658
Transportation
3.63%
$615
Apparel
2.03%
$279
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 2004
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 1953–2004 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$490
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$645
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$707
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $272 by
1979, on its way to $707 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $707; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 2004: $100 is worth $707 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2004/