$100 in 1957 is worth $149 in 1972,
because prices increased 48.8% over that period, an average of
2.68% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$149
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
48.8%
Average inflation rate
2.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$149
Price difference ($100 base)
$48.75
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1957 → 1972
$149
$100 in 1972 → 1957
$67.22
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1972
Between 1957 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 48.8%, which works out to an average of
2.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1972: the 1957 dollar
lost 32.8% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.49: $1,000 becomes
$1,488, and $10,000 becomes $14,875.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.49
$5.00
$7.44
$10.00
$14.88
$20.00
$29.75
$50.00
$74.38
$100
$149
$500
$744
$1,000
$1,488
$5,000
$7,438
$10,000
$14,875
$100,000
$148,754
$1,000,000
$1,487,544
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1972
Between 1957 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 89.3%, while energy rose the least, up 26.5%, against 48.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.68%
$149
Medical care
4.35%
$189
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.84%
$152
Food
2.54%
$146
Transportation
2.46%
$144
Apparel
2.27%
$140
Energy
1.58%
$127
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 3.79% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.75% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1972 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1957, at end
1957–1960
1.75%
5.3%
$105
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$138
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$149
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $110 by
1964, on its way to $149 in 1972; 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 the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $149; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 1972: $100 is worth $149 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1972/