$100 in 1959 is worth $737 in 2009,
because prices increased 637.2% over that period, an average of
4.08% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$737
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
637.2%
Average inflation rate
4.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$737
Price difference ($100 base)
$637
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1959 → 2009
$737
$100 in 2009 → 1959
$13.56
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2009
Between 1959 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 637.2%, which works out to an average of
4.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2009: the 1959 dollar
lost 86.4% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 2009 at the same ratio, 7.37: $1,000 becomes
$7,372, and $10,000 becomes $73,724.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2009
$1.00
$7.37
$5.00
$36.86
$10.00
$73.72
$20.00
$147
$50.00
$369
$100
$737
$500
$3,686
$1,000
$7,372
$5,000
$36,862
$10,000
$73,724
$100,000
$737,241
$1,000,000
$7,372,405
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2009
Between 1959 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1647.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 166.8%, against 637.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.08%
$737
Medical care
5.89%
$1,747
Energy
4.45%
$882
Food
4.07%
$734
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.04%
$726
Transportation
3.65%
$602
Apparel
1.98%
$267
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2009
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 1959–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$737
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $342 by
1983, on its way to $737 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $737; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2009: $100 is worth $737 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2009/