The cost of living in 1959 is blowing people’s minds — and rent prices are making them wish for a time machine

A Reddit post by u/AnimeYumi featuring a 1959 cost-of-living chart has mindblown viewers across generations, prompting a mix of disbelief, nostalgia, and frustration. The post includes everything from rent and groceries to tuition and gas, laying out a snapshot of American affordability that feels completely foreign to today’s standards. The post, shared two years ago, garnered over 22,000 upvotes and over 1000 comments, continues to attract attention as people reflect on how dramatically prices have shifted in relation to income.

The list begins with the basics: a new house in 1959 cost $12,400. At the time, the average annual income was $5,016, meaning a house was priced at a little over twice the yearly salary. A new car could be purchased for $2,250, and the average rent was just $97 per month. Tuition to Harvard University stood at $1,250 per year. A movie ticket cost $1, gasoline was priced at 25 cents per gallon, and a first-class postage stamp cost only 4 cents. Food prices were equally striking. Ten pounds of granulated sugar cost 89 cents, and a gallon of Vitamin D milk was $1.01. A pound of ground coffee went for 95 cents, while bacon cost 63 cents per pound. A dozen eggs were just 29 cents.

Fresh ground hamburger was listed at 58 cents per pound, and a loaf of fresh-baked bread could be bought for 20 cents. The post drew hundreds of reactions, many of them from users comparing those numbers to their current reality. u/an_edgy_lemon wrote, "Crazy that the average income was almost half of the cost of a house. These days, the average income is slightly more than 1/3 the cost of a 20% down payment." u/infinityxero said, "Boomers are talking about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps when back then you could pay your rent with a $100 bill and go grocery shopping with the leftover change."

Some shared their current financial anxieties. "I will never own a home, I will always be living paycheck to paycheck, and I pray I never have to go to the hospital cuz it will financially ruin my life. I hate it here, :)" wrote u/UnseasonedRavioli. Nostalgia also played a role. u/chefranden recalled, "We went to the movies for a dime on Saturday mornings in ’59." Some users also added context by comparing these figures with current prices. One user, u/KiWePing, added adjusted data from various sources. They pointed out that houses are now 214% more expensive than they were in 1959, more than three times the original cost, while salaries have risen by just 12%.

Cars are 102% above their 1959 price, and rent is 66% higher. Interestingly, not everything has gotten more expensive. Several grocery items are now cheaper when adjusted for inflation. Additionally, according to World Population Review, cost-of-living differences across the U.S. remain stark in 2025, with Hawaii topping the list as the most expensive state overall. It carries a total index of 186.9, with housing alone at a staggering 310.0, utilities at 198.0, and groceries at 130.4. Transportation and healthcare also add to the burden, indexed at 133.3 and 121.1, respectively. Massachusetts ranks second at 145.9, driven by a housing index of 218.8 and healthcare at 125.7, while California follows closely at 144.8, where housing sits at 208.7 and transportation at 136.7.

Inflation has made the cost of living almost unaffordable to a section of Americans. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI rose from 29.2 in 1959 to 313.7 in 2024, reflecting a cumulative price increase of about 966% ($1 in 1959 equals $10.67 today), according to the CPI Inflation Calculator.