$100 in 1957 is worth $800 in 2011,
because prices increased 700.5% over that period, an average of
3.93% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$800
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
700.5%
Average inflation rate
3.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$800
Price difference ($100 base)
$700
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1957 → 2011
$800
$100 in 2011 → 1957
$12.49
What happened to prices between 1957 and 2011
Between 1957 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 700.5%, which works out to an average of
3.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1957 dollar
lost 87.5% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.00: $1,000 becomes
$8,005, and $10,000 becomes $80,049.
Amount in 1957
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.00
$5.00
$40.02
$10.00
$80.05
$20.00
$160
$50.00
$400
$100
$800
$500
$4,002
$1,000
$8,005
$5,000
$40,025
$10,000
$80,049
$100,000
$800,495
$1,000,000
$8,004,947
Inflation by spending category, 1957–2011
Between 1957 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1931.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 174.4%, against 700.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.93%
$800
Medical care
5.74%
$2,032
Energy
4.60%
$1,134
Food
3.90%
$788
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.87%
$779
Transportation
3.84%
$767
Apparel
1.89%
$274
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 2011
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 1957–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$776
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$800
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $354 by
1983, on its way to $800 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $800; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 2011: $100 is worth $800 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2011/