$100 in 1957 is worth $232 in 1978,
because prices increased 132.0% over that period, an average of
4.09% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$232
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
132.0%
Average inflation rate
4.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$232
Price difference ($100 base)
$132
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1957 → 1978
$232
$100 in 1978 → 1957
$43.10
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1978
Between 1957 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 132.0%, which works out to an average of
4.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.43 buys in 1978: the 1957 dollar
lost 56.9% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.32: $1,000 becomes
$2,320, and $10,000 becomes $23,203.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.32
$5.00
$11.60
$10.00
$23.20
$20.00
$46.41
$50.00
$116
$100
$232
$500
$1,160
$1,000
$2,320
$5,000
$11,601
$10,000
$23,203
$100,000
$232,028
$1,000,000
$2,320,285
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1978
Between 1957 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 213.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 82.9%, against 132.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.09%
$232
Medical care
5.60%
$314
Food
4.44%
$249
Energy
4.34%
$244
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.97%
$227
Transportation
3.89%
$223
Apparel
2.92%
$183
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.75% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$232
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $119 by
1967, on its way to $232 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $232; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 1978: $100 is worth $232 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1978/