$100 in 1957 is worth $964 in 2021,
because prices increased 864.3% over that period, an average of
3.60% a year.
$100 in 1957 has
the same buying power as
$964
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
864.3%
Average inflation rate
3.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$964
Price difference ($100 base)
$864
CPI in 1957
28.1
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1957 → 2021
$964
$100 in 2021 → 1957
$10.37
What happened to prices between 1957 and 2021
Between 1957 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.1 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 864.3%, which works out to an average of
3.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1957 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2021: the 1957 dollar
lost 89.6% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 2021 at the same ratio, 9.64: $1,000 becomes
$9,643, and $10,000 becomes $96,431.
Amount in 1957
Value in 2021
$1.00
$9.64
$5.00
$48.22
$10.00
$96.43
$20.00
$193
$50.00
$482
$100
$964
$500
$4,822
$1,000
$9,643
$5,000
$48,215
$10,000
$96,431
$100,000
$964,306
$1,000,000
$9,643,060
Inflation by spending category, 1957–2021
Between 1957 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 2566.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 171.9%, against 864.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1957
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1957 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.60%
$964
Medical care
5.26%
$2,666
Energy
3.83%
$1,108
Food
3.60%
$961
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.60%
$959
Transportation
3.37%
$833
Apparel
1.58%
$272
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1957: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1957 to 2021
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 1957–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$964
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1957
$100 from 1957 had already become $404 by
1987, on its way to $964 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1957 had the buying
power of $964; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1957 to 2021: $100 is worth $964 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1957 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1957-to-2021/