$100 in 1959 is worth $108 in 1965,
because prices increased 8.2% over that period, an average of
1.33% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
8.2%
Average inflation rate
1.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$8.25
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1959 → 1965
$108
$100 in 1965 → 1959
$92.38
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1965
Between 1959 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 8.2%, which works out to an average of
1.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1965: the 1959 dollar
lost 7.6% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,082, and $10,000 becomes $10,825.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.41
$10.00
$10.82
$20.00
$21.65
$50.00
$54.12
$100
$108
$500
$541
$1,000
$1,082
$5,000
$5,412
$10,000
$10,825
$100,000
$108,247
$1,000,000
$1,082,474
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1965
Between 1959 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 17.2%, while energy rose the least, up 4.6%, against 8.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.33%
$108
Medical care
2.68%
$117
Food
1.36%
$108
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.33%
$108
Transportation
1.14%
$107
Apparel
1.01%
$106
Energy
0.75%
$105
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 1.72% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1965 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$108
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $104 by
1962, on its way to $108 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $108; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1965: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1965/