$100 in 1959 is worth $224 in 1978,
because prices increased 124.1% over that period, an average of
4.34% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$224
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
124.1%
Average inflation rate
4.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$224
Price difference ($100 base)
$124
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1959 → 1978
$224
$100 in 1978 → 1959
$44.63
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1978
Between 1959 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 124.1%, which works out to an average of
4.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.45 buys in 1978: the 1959 dollar
lost 55.4% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.24: $1,000 becomes
$2,241, and $10,000 becomes $22,405.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.24
$5.00
$11.20
$10.00
$22.41
$20.00
$44.81
$50.00
$112
$100
$224
$500
$1,120
$1,000
$2,241
$5,000
$11,203
$10,000
$22,405
$100,000
$224,055
$1,000,000
$2,240,550
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1978
Between 1959 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 187.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 80.9%, against 124.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.34%
$224
Medical care
5.71%
$287
Food
4.77%
$242
Energy
4.71%
$240
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.16%
$217
Transportation
3.90%
$207
Apparel
3.17%
$181
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$224
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $120 by
1968, on its way to $224 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $224; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1978: $100 is worth $224 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1978/