$100 in 1957 is worth $104 in 1959,
because prices increased 3.6% over that period, an average of
1.76% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.6%
Average inflation rate
1.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.56
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1957 → 1959
$104
$100 in 1959 → 1957
$96.56
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1959
Between 1957 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.6%, which works out to an average of
1.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1959: the 1957 dollar
lost 3.4% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1957 amount converts to 1959 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,036, and $10,000 becomes $10,356.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.18
$10.00
$10.36
$20.00
$20.71
$50.00
$51.78
$100
$104
$500
$518
$1,000
$1,036
$5,000
$5,178
$10,000
$10,356
$100,000
$103,559
$1,000,000
$1,035,587
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1959
Between 1957 and 1959, medical care rose the most, up 9.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 1.1%, against 3.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.76%
$104
Medical care
4.47%
$109
Transportation
3.72%
$108
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.22%
$104
Food
1.37%
$103
Energy
0.93%
$102
Apparel
0.56%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $103 by
1958, on its way to $104 in 1959; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.8% in 1958, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $104; 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 1957 to 1959: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1959/