$100 in 1959 is worth $509 in 1994,
because prices increased 409.3% over that period, an average of
4.76% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$509
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
409.3%
Average inflation rate
4.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$509
Price difference ($100 base)
$409
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1959 → 1994
$509
$100 in 1994 → 1959
$19.64
What happened to prices between 1959 and 1994
Between 1959 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 409.3%, which works out to an average of
4.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1994: the 1959 dollar
lost 80.4% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1994 at the same ratio, 5.09: $1,000 becomes
$5,093, and $10,000 becomes $50,928.
Amount in 1959
Value in 1994
$1.00
$5.09
$5.00
$25.46
$10.00
$50.93
$20.00
$102
$50.00
$255
$100
$509
$500
$2,546
$1,000
$5,093
$5,000
$25,464
$10,000
$50,928
$100,000
$509,278
$1,000,000
$5,092,784
Inflation by spending category, 1959–1994
Between 1959 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 881.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 196.4%, against 409.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.76%
$509
Medical care
6.74%
$981
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.81%
$518
Food
4.62%
$486
Energy
4.57%
$478
Transportation
4.40%
$451
Apparel
3.15%
$296
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 1994
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 1959–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$449
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$509
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $208 by
1977, on its way to $509 in 1994; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $509; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 1994: $100 is worth $509 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-1994/