$100 in 1958 is worth $134 in 1970,
because prices increased 34.3% over that period, an average of
2.49% a year.
$100 in 1958 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.3%
Average inflation rate
2.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.26
CPI in 1958
28.9
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1958 → 1970
$134
$100 in 1970 → 1958
$74.48
What happened to prices between 1958 and 1970
Between 1958 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 28.9 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.3%, which works out to an average of
2.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1958 bought what
$0.74 buys in 1970: the 1958 dollar
lost 25.5% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
Every 1958 amount converts to 1970 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,343, and $10,000 becomes $13,426.
Amount in 1958
Value in 1970
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.71
$10.00
$13.43
$20.00
$26.85
$50.00
$67.13
$100
$134
$500
$671
$1,000
$1,343
$5,000
$6,713
$10,000
$13,426
$100,000
$134,256
$1,000,000
$1,342,561
Inflation by spending category, 1958–1970
Between 1958 and 1970, medical care rose the most, up 65.0%, while energy rose the least, up 18.6%, against 34.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1958
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1958 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.49%
$134
Medical care
4.26%
$165
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.71%
$138
Apparel
2.39%
$133
Transportation
2.28%
$131
Food
2.20%
$130
Energy
1.43%
$119
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1958: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1958 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.74% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.20% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1958–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1958, at end
1958–1960
1.20%
2.4%
$102
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1958
$100 from 1958 had already become $107 by
1964, on its way to $134 in 1970; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1958 had the buying
power of $134; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1958 to 1970: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1958-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1958 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1958-to-1970/