$100 in 1957 is worth $763 in 2009,
because prices increased 663.5% over that period, an average of
3.99% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$763
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
663.5%
Average inflation rate
3.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$763
Price difference ($100 base)
$663
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1957 → 2009
$763
$100 in 2009 → 1957
$13.10
What happened to prices between 1957 and 2009
Between 1957 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 663.5%, which works out to an average of
3.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2009: the 1957 dollar
lost 86.9% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 2009 at the same ratio, 7.63: $1,000 becomes
$7,635, and $10,000 becomes $76,348.
Amount in 1957
Value in 2009
$1.00
$7.63
$5.00
$38.17
$10.00
$76.35
$20.00
$153
$50.00
$382
$100
$763
$500
$3,817
$1,000
$7,635
$5,000
$38,174
$10,000
$76,348
$100,000
$763,477
$1,000,000
$7,634,769
Inflation by spending category, 1957–2009
Between 1957 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1806.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 169.8%, against 663.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.99%
$763
Medical care
5.83%
$1,907
Energy
4.31%
$898
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.97%
$759
Food
3.96%
$754
Transportation
3.66%
$647
Apparel
1.93%
$270
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 2009
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 1957–2009 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$465
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$613
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$763
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $354 by
1983, on its way to $763 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $763; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 2009: $100 is worth $763 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2009/