$100 in 1959 is worth $426 in 1989,
because prices increased 326.1% over that period, an average of
4.95% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$426
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
326.1%
Average inflation rate
4.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$426
Price difference ($100 base)
$326
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1959 → 1989
$426
$100 in 1989 → 1959
$23.47
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1989
Between 1959 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 326.1%, which works out to an average of
4.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.23 buys in 1989: the 1959 dollar
lost 76.5% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.26: $1,000 becomes
$4,261, and $10,000 becomes $42,612.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.26
$5.00
$21.31
$10.00
$42.61
$20.00
$85.22
$50.00
$213
$100
$426
$500
$2,131
$1,000
$4,261
$5,000
$21,306
$10,000
$42,612
$100,000
$426,117
$1,000,000
$4,261,168
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1989
Between 1959 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 594.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 163.6%, against 326.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.95%
$426
Medical care
6.67%
$694
Energy
4.99%
$431
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.96%
$427
Food
4.91%
$421
Transportation
4.58%
$383
Apparel
3.28%
$264
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (1.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–1989 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$283
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$426
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $169 by
1974, on its way to $426 in 1989; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1962.
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $426; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1989: $100 is worth $426 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1989/