$100 in 1957 is worth $258 in 1979,
because prices increased 158.4% over that period, an average of
4.41% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$258
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
158.4%
Average inflation rate
4.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$258
Price difference ($100 base)
$158
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1957 → 1979
$258
$100 in 1979 → 1957
$38.71
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1979
Between 1957 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 158.4%, which works out to an average of
4.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.39 buys in 1979: the 1957 dollar
lost 61.3% of its purchasing power over
these 22 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.58: $1,000 becomes
$2,584, and $10,000 becomes $25,836.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.58
$5.00
$12.92
$10.00
$25.84
$20.00
$51.67
$50.00
$129
$100
$258
$500
$1,292
$1,000
$2,584
$5,000
$12,918
$10,000
$25,836
$100,000
$258,363
$1,000,000
$2,583,630
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1979
Between 1957 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 242.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 90.8%, against 158.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.41%
$258
Medical care
5.76%
$343
Energy
5.21%
$306
Food
4.73%
$276
Transportation
4.34%
$255
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.23%
$249
Apparel
2.98%
$191
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.75% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$258
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $124 by
1968, on its way to $258 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $258; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 1979: $100 is worth $258 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1979/