$100 in 1953 is worth $804 in 2009,
because prices increased 703.5% over that period, an average of
3.79% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$804
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
703.5%
Average inflation rate
3.79% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$804
Price difference ($100 base)
$704
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1953 → 2009
$804
$100 in 2009 → 1953
$12.45
What happened to prices between 1953 and 2009
Between 1953 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 703.5%, which works out to an average of
3.79% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2009: the 1953 dollar
lost 87.6% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 2009 at the same ratio, 8.04: $1,000 becomes
$8,035, and $10,000 becomes $80,351.
Amount in 1953
Value in 2009
$1.00
$8.04
$5.00
$40.18
$10.00
$80.35
$20.00
$161
$50.00
$402
$100
$804
$500
$4,018
$1,000
$8,035
$5,000
$40,175
$10,000
$80,351
$100,000
$803,509
$1,000,000
$8,035,094
Inflation by spending category, 1953–2009
Between 1953 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 2071.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.6%, against 703.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.79%
$804
Medical care
5.65%
$2,171
Food
3.71%
$770
Transportation
3.47%
$676
Apparel
1.85%
$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 2009
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 1953–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$804
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $340 by
1981, on its way to $804 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $804; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 2009: $100 is worth $804 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2009/