$100 in 1954 is worth $144 in 1970,
because prices increased 44.2% over that period, an average of
2.32% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$144
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
44.2%
Average inflation rate
2.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$144
Price difference ($100 base)
$44.24
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1954 → 1970
$144
$100 in 1970 → 1954
$69.33
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1970
Between 1954 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 44.2%, which works out to an average of
2.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.69 buys in 1970: the 1954 dollar
lost 30.7% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1970 at the same ratio, 1.44: $1,000 becomes
$1,442, and $10,000 becomes $14,424.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1970
$1.00
$1.44
$5.00
$7.21
$10.00
$14.42
$20.00
$28.85
$50.00
$72.12
$100
$144
$500
$721
$1,000
$1,442
$5,000
$7,212
$10,000
$14,424
$100,000
$144,238
$1,000,000
$1,442,379
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1970
Between 1954 and 1970, medical care rose the most, up 91.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 37.4%, against 44.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.32%
$144
Medical care
4.13%
$191
Transportation
2.29%
$144
Food
2.08%
$139
Apparel
2.00%
$137
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–).
Decade by decade: 1954 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.74% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.61% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1954–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1954, at end
1954–1960
1.61%
10.0%
$110
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$144
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1954
$100 from 1954 had already become $112 by
1962, on its way to $144 in 1970; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1954 had the buying
power of $144; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1954 to 1970: $100 is worth $144 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1970/