$100 in 1957 is worth $921 in 2020,
because prices increased 821.0% over that period, an average of
3.59% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$921
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
821.0%
Average inflation rate
3.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$921
Price difference ($100 base)
$821
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1957 → 2020
$921
$100 in 2020 → 1957
$10.86
What happened to prices between 1957 and 2020
Between 1957 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 821.0%, which works out to an average of
3.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2020: the 1957 dollar
lost 89.1% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.21: $1,000 becomes
$9,210, and $10,000 becomes $92,104.
Amount in 1957
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.21
$5.00
$46.05
$10.00
$92.10
$20.00
$184
$50.00
$461
$100
$921
$500
$4,605
$1,000
$9,210
$5,000
$46,052
$10,000
$92,104
$100,000
$921,036
$1,000,000
$9,210,356
Inflation by spending category, 1957–2020
Between 1957 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2533.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 165.3%, against 821.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.59%
$921
Medical care
5.33%
$2,634
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.60%
$926
Food
3.59%
$925
Energy
3.58%
$916
Transportation
3.20%
$727
Apparel
1.56%
$265
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1957–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$921
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $404 by
1987, on its way to $921 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $921; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 2020: $100 is worth $921 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2020/