$100 in 1953 is worth $842 in 2011,
because prices increased 742.5% over that period, an average of
3.74% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$842
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
742.5%
Average inflation rate
3.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$842
Price difference ($100 base)
$742
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1953 → 2011
$842
$100 in 2011 → 1953
$11.87
What happened to prices between 1953 and 2011
Between 1953 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 742.5%, which works out to an average of
3.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1953 dollar
lost 88.1% of its purchasing power over
these 58 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.42: $1,000 becomes
$8,425, and $10,000 becomes $84,247.
Amount in 1953
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.42
$5.00
$42.12
$10.00
$84.25
$20.00
$168
$50.00
$421
$100
$842
$500
$4,212
$1,000
$8,425
$5,000
$42,123
$10,000
$84,247
$100,000
$842,468
$1,000,000
$8,424,682
Inflation by spending category, 1953–2011
Between 1953 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2213.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 183.3%, against 742.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.74%
$842
Medical care
5.57%
$2,314
Food
3.66%
$805
Transportation
3.65%
$801
Apparel
1.81%
$283
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 2011
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 1953–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$817
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$842
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $340 by
1981, on its way to $842 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $842; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 2011: $100 is worth $842 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2011/