$100 in 1959 is worth $814 in 2015,
because prices increased 714.5% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$814
in 2015
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
714.5%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$814
Price difference ($100 base)
$714
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2015
237.017
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2015
0.12%
$100 in 1959 → 2015
$814
$100 in 2015 → 1959
$12.28
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2015
Between 1959 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 714.5%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2015: the 1959 dollar
lost 87.7% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 2015 at the same ratio, 8.14: $1,000 becomes
$8,145, and $10,000 becomes $81,449.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2015
$1.00
$8.14
$5.00
$40.72
$10.00
$81.45
$20.00
$163
$50.00
$407
$100
$814
$500
$4,072
$1,000
$8,145
$5,000
$40,725
$10,000
$81,449
$100,000
$814,491
$1,000,000
$8,144,914
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2015
Between 1959 and 2015, medical care rose the most, up 1977.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 179.8%, against 714.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$814
Medical care
5.57%
$2,078
Energy
4.06%
$926
Food
3.86%
$832
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.79%
$802
Transportation
3.45%
$668
Apparel
1.85%
$280
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2015
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.68% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1959–2015 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
2010–2015
1.68%
8.7%
$814
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $390 by
1987, on its way to $814 in 2015; 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: 2015
In 2015, prices rose 0.1% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $814; the year's average CPI of 237.017 is the level
behind every 2015 figure on this page.
2015 was almost a year with no inflation at all. Consumer prices rose 0.1%,
the smallest increase since the 2009 decline, because energy prices kept
falling. Gasoline averaged $2.45 a gallon, down from $3.37 in 2014, and a
strong dollar made imported goods cheaper. The picture was different outside
food and energy: core prices rose about 1.8% as rents and medical costs
climbed.
Incomes finally showed real progress. Median household income reached $56,516,
a large jump from $53,657, and the median new home sold for about $296,400. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp stayed at 49
cents.
The Federal Reserve chose December to end its zero-rate policy, raising the
target range to 0.25–0.50% for the first time since 2006. It moved even
though headline inflation was far under 2%, arguing that the drag from
energy was temporary. Earlier, a currency shift in China in August had shaken
global markets and pushed oil below $40 a barrel. Prices in 2015 ended
the year barely above their 2014 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2015: $100 is worth $814 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2015/