$100 in 1959 is worth $693 in 2006,
because prices increased 592.8% over that period, an average of
4.20% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$693
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
592.8%
Average inflation rate
4.20% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$693
Price difference ($100 base)
$593
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1959 → 2006
$693
$100 in 2006 → 1959
$14.43
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2006
Between 1959 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 592.8%, which works out to an average of
4.20% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2006: the 1959 dollar
lost 85.6% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 2006 at the same ratio, 6.93: $1,000 becomes
$6,928, and $10,000 becomes $69,278.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2006
$1.00
$6.93
$5.00
$34.64
$10.00
$69.28
$20.00
$139
$50.00
$346
$100
$693
$500
$3,464
$1,000
$6,928
$5,000
$34,639
$10,000
$69,278
$100,000
$692,784
$1,000,000
$6,927,835
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2006
Between 1959 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 1463.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 165.6%, against 592.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.20%
$693
Medical care
6.02%
$1,564
Energy
4.78%
$899
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.17%
$682
Food
4.09%
$657
Transportation
3.91%
$607
Apparel
2.10%
$266
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2006
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 1959–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$693
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $342 by
1983, on its way to $693 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $693; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2006: $100 is worth $693 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2006/