$100 in 1959 is worth $126 in 1969,
because prices increased 26.1% over that period, an average of
2.35% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$126
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
26.1%
Average inflation rate
2.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$126
Price difference ($100 base)
$26.12
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1959 → 1969
$126
$100 in 1969 → 1959
$79.29
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1969
Between 1959 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 26.1%, which works out to an average of
2.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.79 buys in 1969: the 1959 dollar
lost 20.7% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.26: $1,000 becomes
$1,261, and $10,000 becomes $12,612.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.26
$5.00
$6.31
$10.00
$12.61
$20.00
$25.22
$50.00
$63.06
$100
$126
$500
$631
$1,000
$1,261
$5,000
$6,306
$10,000
$12,612
$100,000
$126,117
$1,000,000
$1,261,168
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1969
Between 1959 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 48.4%, while energy rose the least, up 13.2%, against 26.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.35%
$126
Medical care
4.02%
$148
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.43%
$127
Apparel
2.36%
$126
Food
2.25%
$125
Transportation
1.82%
$120
Energy
1.25%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.42% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1969 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$126
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $107 by
1964, on its way to $126 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $126; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1969: $100 is worth $126 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1969/