$100 in 1959 is worth $115 in 1967,
because prices increased 14.8% over that period, an average of
1.74% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$115
in 1967
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
14.8%
Average inflation rate
1.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$115
Price difference ($100 base)
$14.78
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1967
33.4
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
$100 in 1959 → 1967
$115
$100 in 1967 → 1959
$87.13
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1967
Between 1959 and 1967, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 33.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 14.8%, which works out to an average of
1.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.87 buys in 1967: the 1959 dollar
lost 12.9% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1967 at the same ratio, 1.15: $1,000 becomes
$1,148, and $10,000 becomes $11,478.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1967
$1.00
$1.15
$5.00
$5.74
$10.00
$11.48
$20.00
$22.96
$50.00
$57.39
$100
$115
$500
$574
$1,000
$1,148
$5,000
$5,739
$10,000
$11,478
$100,000
$114,777
$1,000,000
$1,147,766
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1967
Between 1959 and 1967, medical care rose the most, up 31.2%, while energy rose the least, up 8.7%, against 14.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1967, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.74%
$115
Medical care
3.45%
$131
Core (all items less food & energy)
1.75%
$115
Food
1.74%
$115
Apparel
1.58%
$113
Transportation
1.40%
$112
Energy
1.05%
$109
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1967
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 1.74% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1967 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1967
1.74%
12.8%
$115
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $105 by
1963, on its way to $115 in 1967; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.1% in 1967, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1967, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $115; the year's average CPI of 33.4 is the level
behind every 1967 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1967, up from 1966’s 2.9% as
Vietnam War spending kept climbing alongside expanding Great Society
programs, a combination of rising military and domestic outlays that
economists later blamed for entrenching inflation through the rest of the
decade. The minimum wage rose that February 1, to $1.40 an hour, the
first step of a phased increase Congress had set the year before. Urban
unrest reached a peak that July, when days of rioting left 26 dead in
Newark and 43 dead in Detroit, the deadliest of that summer’s roughly 160
disturbances; Johnson responded by forming the Kerner Commission to study
the causes of the unrest. The Supreme Court gained its first Black
justice that year too: the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall on August
30, and he was sworn in that October after serving as U.S. Solicitor
General and, before that, as the lead attorney in Brown v. Board of
Education. Consumer prices finished 1967 237.4% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1967: $100 is worth $115 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1967/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1967. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1967/