$100 in 1956 is worth $135 in 1969,
because prices increased 34.9% over that period, an average of
2.33% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$135
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.9%
Average inflation rate
2.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$135
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.93
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1956 → 1969
$135
$100 in 1969 → 1956
$74.11
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1969
Between 1956 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.9%, which works out to an average of
2.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.74 buys in 1969: the 1956 dollar
lost 25.9% of its purchasing power over
these 13 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
Every 1956 amount converts to 1969 at the same ratio, 1.35: $1,000 becomes
$1,349, and $10,000 becomes $13,493.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.35
$5.00
$6.75
$10.00
$13.49
$20.00
$26.99
$50.00
$67.46
$100
$135
$500
$675
$1,000
$1,349
$5,000
$6,746
$10,000
$13,493
$100,000
$134,926
$1,000,000
$1,349,265
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1969
Between 1956 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 68.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 30.0%, against 34.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.33%
$135
Medical care
4.11%
$169
Transportation
2.41%
$136
Food
2.19%
$133
Apparel
2.04%
$130
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1956: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1956 to 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.42% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.14% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1969 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$135
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $111 by
1962, on its way to $135 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $135; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 1969: $100 is worth $135 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1969/