$100 in 1954 is worth $108 in 1959,
because prices increased 8.2% over that period, an average of
1.58% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
8.2%
Average inflation rate
1.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$8.18
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1954 → 1959
$108
$100 in 1959 → 1954
$92.44
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1959
Between 1954 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 8.2%, which works out to an average of
1.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1959: the 1954 dollar
lost 7.6% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1954 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,082, and $10,000 becomes $10,818.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.41
$10.00
$10.82
$20.00
$21.64
$50.00
$54.09
$100
$108
$500
$541
$1,000
$1,082
$5,000
$5,409
$10,000
$10,818
$100,000
$108,178
$1,000,000
$1,081,784
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1959
Between 1954 and 1959, medical care rose the most, up 20.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.4%, against 8.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.58%
$108
Medical care
3.85%
$121
Transportation
2.69%
$114
Food
1.04%
$105
Apparel
0.87%
$104
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1954: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1954
$100 from 1954 had already become $101 by
1956, on its way to $108 in 1959; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1954 had the buying
power of $108; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1954 to 1959: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1959/