$100 in 1953 is worth $969 in 2020,
because prices increased 869.3% over that period, an average of
3.45% a year.
$100 in 1953 has
the same buying power as
$969
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
869.3%
Average inflation rate
3.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$969
Price difference ($100 base)
$869
CPI in 1953
26.7
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1953 → 2020
$969
$100 in 2020 → 1953
$10.32
What happened to prices between 1953 and 2020
Between 1953 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.7 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 869.3%, which works out to an average of
3.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1953 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2020: the 1953 dollar
lost 89.7% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.69: $1,000 becomes
$9,693, and $10,000 becomes $96,933.
Amount in 1953
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.69
$5.00
$48.47
$10.00
$96.93
$20.00
$194
$50.00
$485
$100
$969
$500
$4,847
$1,000
$9,693
$5,000
$48,466
$10,000
$96,933
$100,000
$969,330
$1,000,000
$9,693,296
Inflation by spending category, 1953–2020
Between 1953 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2899.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 174.0%, against 869.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1953
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1953 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.45%
$969
Medical care
5.21%
$2,999
Food
3.41%
$944
Transportation
3.07%
$760
Apparel
1.52%
$274
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 2020
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 1953–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$969
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1953
$100 from 1953 had already become $443 by
1988, on its way to $969 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1953 had the buying
power of $969; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1953 to 2020: $100 is worth $969 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1953 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1953-to-2020/