$100 in 1959 is worth $773 in 2011,
because prices increased 673.0% over that period, an average of
4.01% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$773
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
673.0%
Average inflation rate
4.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$773
Price difference ($100 base)
$673
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1959 → 2011
$773
$100 in 2011 → 1959
$12.94
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2011
Between 1959 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 673.0%, which works out to an average of
4.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2011: the 1959 dollar
lost 87.1% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 2011 at the same ratio, 7.73: $1,000 becomes
$7,730, and $10,000 becomes $77,299.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2011
$1.00
$7.73
$5.00
$38.65
$10.00
$77.30
$20.00
$155
$50.00
$386
$100
$773
$500
$3,865
$1,000
$7,730
$5,000
$38,649
$10,000
$77,299
$100,000
$772,986
$1,000,000
$7,729,863
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2011
Between 1959 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 1761.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 171.4%, against 673.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.01%
$773
Medical care
5.78%
$1,862
Energy
4.74%
$1,114
Food
4.00%
$767
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.94%
$745
Transportation
3.85%
$713
Apparel
1.94%
$271
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2011
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 1959–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$749
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$773
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $370 by
1985, on its way to $773 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $773; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2011: $100 is worth $773 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2011/