$100 in 1959 is worth $931 in 2021,
because prices increased 831.2% over that period, an average of
3.66% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$931
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
831.2%
Average inflation rate
3.66% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$931
Price difference ($100 base)
$831
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1959 → 2021
$931
$100 in 2021 → 1959
$10.74
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2021
Between 1959 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 831.2%, which works out to an average of
3.66% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2021: the 1959 dollar
lost 89.3% of its purchasing power over
these 62 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 2021 at the same ratio, 9.31: $1,000 becomes
$9,312, and $10,000 becomes $93,117.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2021
$1.00
$9.31
$5.00
$46.56
$10.00
$93.12
$20.00
$186
$50.00
$466
$100
$931
$500
$4,656
$1,000
$9,312
$5,000
$46,558
$10,000
$93,117
$100,000
$931,168
$1,000,000
$9,311,684
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2021
Between 1959 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 2343.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 168.9%, against 831.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.66%
$931
Medical care
5.29%
$2,443
Energy
3.93%
$1,088
Food
3.67%
$935
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.64%
$918
Transportation
3.36%
$774
Apparel
1.61%
$269
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2021
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 1959–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$931
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $426 by
1989, on its way to $931 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $931; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2021: $100 is worth $931 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2021/