$100 in 1957 is worth $441 in 1989,
because prices increased 341.3% over that period, an average of
4.75% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$441
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
341.3%
Average inflation rate
4.75% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$441
Price difference ($100 base)
$341
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1957 → 1989
$441
$100 in 1989 → 1957
$22.66
What happened to prices between 1957 and 1989
Between 1957 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 341.3%, which works out to an average of
4.75% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1989: the 1957 dollar
lost 77.3% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.41: $1,000 becomes
$4,413, and $10,000 becomes $44,128.
Amount in 1957
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.41
$5.00
$22.06
$10.00
$44.13
$20.00
$88.26
$50.00
$221
$100
$441
$500
$2,206
$1,000
$4,413
$5,000
$22,064
$10,000
$44,128
$100,000
$441,281
$1,000,000
$4,412,811
Inflation by spending category, 1957–1989
Between 1957 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 657.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 166.5%, against 341.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.75%
$441
Medical care
6.53%
$758
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.79%
$446
Energy
4.73%
$439
Food
4.69%
$433
Transportation
4.52%
$412
Apparel
3.11%
$267
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.75% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–1989 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$293
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$441
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $158 by
1973, on its way to $441 in 1989; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $441; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 1989: $100 is worth $441 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-1989/