$100 in 1959 is worth $649 in 2004,
because prices increased 549.1% over that period, an average of
4.24% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$649
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
549.1%
Average inflation rate
4.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$649
Price difference ($100 base)
$549
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1959 → 2004
$649
$100 in 2004 → 1959
$15.40
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2004
Between 1959 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 549.1%, which works out to an average of
4.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.15 buys in 2004: the 1959 dollar
lost 84.6% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 2004 at the same ratio, 6.49: $1,000 becomes
$6,491, and $10,000 becomes $64,914.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2004
$1.00
$6.49
$5.00
$32.46
$10.00
$64.91
$20.00
$130
$50.00
$325
$100
$649
$500
$3,246
$1,000
$6,491
$5,000
$32,457
$10,000
$64,914
$100,000
$649,141
$1,000,000
$6,491,409
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2004
Between 1959 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1342.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 167.6%, against 549.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.24%
$649
Medical care
6.11%
$1,442
Energy
4.39%
$691
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.25%
$651
Food
4.16%
$627
Transportation
3.85%
$547
Apparel
2.21%
$268
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2004
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 1959–2004 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$592
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$649
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $312 by
1981, on its way to $649 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $649; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2004: $100 is worth $649 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2004/