$100 in 1959 is worth $103 in 1961,
because prices increased 2.7% over that period, an average of
1.37% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$103
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2.7%
Average inflation rate
1.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$103
Price difference ($100 base)
$2.75
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1959 → 1961
$103
$100 in 1961 → 1959
$97.32
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1961
Between 1959 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2.7%, which works out to an average of
1.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1961: the 1959 dollar
lost 2.7% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
Every 1959 amount converts to 1961 at the same ratio, 1.03: $1,000 becomes
$1,027, and $10,000 becomes $10,275.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.03
$5.00
$5.14
$10.00
$10.27
$20.00
$20.55
$50.00
$51.37
$100
$103
$500
$514
$1,000
$1,027
$5,000
$5,137
$10,000
$10,275
$100,000
$102,749
$1,000,000
$1,027,491
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1961
Between 1959 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 6.5%, while transportation rose the least, up 1.0%, against 2.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.37%
$103
Medical care
3.20%
$107
Energy
1.36%
$103
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.32%
$103
Apparel
1.21%
$102
Food
1.17%
$102
Transportation
0.50%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.72% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$103
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $102 by
1960, on its way to $103 in 1961; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.7% in 1960, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1961.
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $103; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1961: $100 is worth $103 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1961/