$100 in 1959 is worth $889 in 2020,
because prices increased 789.4% over that period, an average of
3.65% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$889
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
789.4%
Average inflation rate
3.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$889
Price difference ($100 base)
$789
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1959 → 2020
$889
$100 in 2020 → 1959
$11.24
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2020
Between 1959 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 789.4%, which works out to an average of
3.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2020: the 1959 dollar
lost 88.8% of its purchasing power over
these 61 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 2020 at the same ratio, 8.89: $1,000 becomes
$8,894, and $10,000 becomes $88,938.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2020
$1.00
$8.89
$5.00
$44.47
$10.00
$88.94
$20.00
$178
$50.00
$445
$100
$889
$500
$4,447
$1,000
$8,894
$5,000
$44,469
$10,000
$88,938
$100,000
$889,385
$1,000,000
$8,893,849
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2020
Between 1959 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2313.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 162.4%, against 789.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.65%
$889
Medical care
5.36%
$2,413
Food
3.67%
$900
Energy
3.67%
$899
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.64%
$886
Transportation
3.18%
$676
Apparel
1.59%
$262
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2020
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 1959–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$889
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $426 by
1989, on its way to $889 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $889; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2020: $100 is worth $889 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2020/