$100 in 1959 is worth $120 in 1968,
because prices increased 19.6% over that period, an average of
2.01% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$120
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
19.6%
Average inflation rate
2.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$120
Price difference ($100 base)
$19.59
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1959 → 1968
$120
$100 in 1968 → 1959
$83.62
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1968
Between 1959 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 19.6%, which works out to an average of
2.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1968: the 1959 dollar
lost 16.4% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1968 at the same ratio, 1.20: $1,000 becomes
$1,196, and $10,000 becomes $11,959.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.20
$5.00
$5.98
$10.00
$11.96
$20.00
$23.92
$50.00
$59.79
$100
$120
$500
$598
$1,000
$1,196
$5,000
$5,979
$10,000
$11,959
$100,000
$119,588
$1,000,000
$1,195,876
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1968
Between 1959 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 39.1%, while energy rose the least, up 10.5%, against 19.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.01%
$120
Medical care
3.73%
$139
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.07%
$120
Apparel
1.98%
$119
Food
1.94%
$119
Transportation
1.57%
$115
Energy
1.12%
$111
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$120
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $105 by
1963, on its way to $120 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.2% in 1968, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $120; the year's average CPI of 34.8 is the level
behind every 1968 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in 1968, up sharply from 1967’s
3.1% and the fastest pace in 17 years, as Vietnam War spending and a tight
labor market pushed inflation higher despite the Federal Reserve’s
earlier tightening. The year was marked by political violence: Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April
4, touching off rioting in more than 100 cities, and Robert F. Kennedy was
shot in Los Angeles on June 5, moments after winning California’s
Democratic presidential primary, and died the next day. Washington tried
to answer the inflation problem directly that June 28, when Congress
passed a 10% income tax surcharge, the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act, temporarily raising taxes and cutting spending to cool an economy
overheated by war and Great Society outlays; prices kept accelerating
anyway. The cost of living rose in smaller, more visible ways too:
first-class postage climbed to 6 cents that January 7, and the minimum
wage rose to $1.60 an hour that February 1, the final step of the
increase Congress had set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1968 251.5% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1968: $100 is worth $120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1968/