$100 in 1959 is worth $105 in 1963,
because prices increased 5.2% over that period, an average of
1.26% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
5.2%
Average inflation rate
1.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$5.15
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1959 → 1963
$105
$100 in 1963 → 1959
$95.10
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1963
Between 1959 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 5.2%, which works out to an average of
1.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.95 buys in 1963: the 1959 dollar
lost 4.9% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,052, and $10,000 becomes $10,515.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.26
$10.00
$10.52
$20.00
$21.03
$50.00
$52.58
$100
$105
$500
$526
$1,000
$1,052
$5,000
$5,258
$10,000
$10,515
$100,000
$105,155
$1,000,000
$1,051,546
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1963
Between 1959 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 12.1%, while energy rose the least, up 3.2%, against 5.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.26%
$105
Medical care
2.90%
$112
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.30%
$105
Food
1.16%
$105
Apparel
1.04%
$104
Transportation
0.91%
$104
Energy
0.79%
$103
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.72% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$105
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $103 by
1961, on its way to $105 in 1963; 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 1962.
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $105; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1963: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1963/