$100 in 1959 is worth $249 in 1979,
because prices increased 149.5% over that period, an average of
4.68% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$249
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
149.5%
Average inflation rate
4.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$249
Price difference ($100 base)
$149
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1959 → 1979
$249
$100 in 1979 → 1959
$40.08
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1979
Between 1959 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 149.5%, which works out to an average of
4.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.40 buys in 1979: the 1959 dollar
lost 59.9% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.49: $1,000 becomes
$2,495, and $10,000 becomes $24,948.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.49
$5.00
$12.47
$10.00
$24.95
$20.00
$49.90
$50.00
$125
$100
$249
$500
$1,247
$1,000
$2,495
$5,000
$12,474
$10,000
$24,948
$100,000
$249,485
$1,000,000
$2,494,845
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1979
Between 1959 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 214.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 88.7%, against 149.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.68%
$249
Medical care
5.89%
$314
Energy
5.65%
$300
Food
5.07%
$269
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.43%
$238
Transportation
4.40%
$237
Apparel
3.22%
$189
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$249
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $126 by
1969, on its way to $249 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $249; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1979: $100 is worth $249 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1979/