$100 in 1959 is worth $1,078 in 2024,
because prices increased 978.0% over that period, an average of
3.73% a year.
$100 in 1959 has
the same buying power as
$1,078
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
978.0%
Average inflation rate
3.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,078
Price difference ($100 base)
$978
CPI in 1959
29.1
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1959 → 2024
$1,078
$100 in 2024 → 1959
$9.28
What happened to prices between 1959 and 2024
Between 1959 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 29.1 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 978.0%, which works out to an average of
3.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1959 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2024: the 1959 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 2024 at the same ratio, 10.78: $1,000 becomes
$10,780, and $10,000 becomes $107,797.
Amount in 1959
Value in 2024
$1.00
$10.78
$5.00
$53.90
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$216
$50.00
$539
$100
$1,078
$500
$5,390
$1,000
$10,780
$5,000
$53,898
$10,000
$107,797
$100,000
$1,077,969
$1,000,000
$10,779,691
Inflation by spending category, 1959–2024
Between 1959 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 2522.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 192.2%, against 978.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1959
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1959 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.73%
$1,078
Medical care
5.15%
$2,623
Energy
4.00%
$1,276
Food
3.78%
$1,112
Core (all items less food & energy)
3.69%
$1,056
Transportation
3.45%
$908
Apparel
1.66%
$292
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1959: housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1959 to 2024
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 1959–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,078
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1959
$100 from 1959 had already become $426 by
1989, on its way to $1,078 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1959 had the buying
power of $1,078; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1959 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,078 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1959 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1959-to-2024/