$100 in 1959 is worth $153 in 1973,
because prices increased 52.6% over that period, an average of
3.06% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1973
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.6%
Average inflation rate
3.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.58
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1973
44.4
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
$100 in 1959 → 1973
$153
$100 in 1973 → 1959
$65.54
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1973
Between 1959 and 1973, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 44.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.6%, which works out to an average of
3.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1973: the 1959 dollar
lost 34.5% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1973 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,526, and $10,000 becomes $15,258.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1973
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.63
$10.00
$15.26
$20.00
$30.52
$50.00
$76.29
$100
$153
$500
$763
$1,000
$1,526
$5,000
$7,629
$10,000
$15,258
$100,000
$152,577
$1,000,000
$1,525,773
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1973
Between 1959 and 1973, medical care rose the most, up 80.5%, while energy rose the least, up 34.2%, against 52.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1973, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.06%
$153
Medical care
4.31%
$180
Food
3.52%
$162
Core (all items less food & energy)
2.99%
$151
Apparel
2.62%
$144
Transportation
2.34%
$138
Energy
2.13%
$134
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1973
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 4.60% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1973 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1959, at end
1959–1960
1.72%
1.7%
$102
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$133
1970–1973
4.60%
14.4%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $111 by
1966, on its way to $153 in 1973; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 6.2% in 1973, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1973, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $153; the year's average CPI of 44.4 is the level
behind every 1973 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1973: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1973/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1973. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1973/