$100 in 1913 is worth $271 in 1955,
because prices increased 170.7% over that period, an average of
2.40% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$271
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
170.7%
Average inflation rate
2.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$271
Price difference ($100 base)
$171
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1913 → 1955
$271
$100 in 1955 → 1913
$36.94
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1955
Between 1913 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 170.7%, which works out to an average of
2.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1955: the 1913 dollar
lost 63.1% of its purchasing power over
these 42 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 2.71: $1,000 becomes
$2,707, and $10,000 becomes $27,071.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1955
$1.00
$2.71
$5.00
$13.54
$10.00
$27.07
$20.00
$54.14
$50.00
$135
$100
$271
$500
$1,354
$1,000
$2,707
$5,000
$13,535
$10,000
$27,071
$100,000
$270,707
$1,000,000
$2,707,071
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1955
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.40%
$271
Food
2.46%
$278
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$271
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $131 by
1933, on its way to $271 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1955
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $271; the year's average CPI of 26.8 is the level
behind every 1955 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the first annual decline since 1949,
as a strong rebound from the 1953-54 recession delivered growth without
much price pressure; automakers and appliance makers competed hard on
price for a booming consumer market. Organized labor consolidated that
December, when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations merged on the 5th under President George Meany,
uniting roughly 15 million workers in the AFL-CIO after two decades as
rival federations. That same day, a different kind of organizing began in
Montgomery, Alabama: four days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing
to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, the city’s Black community
began a boycott of its buses that would last more than a year and help
launch the civil rights movement’s mass phase. Markets got a scare that
September: news of Eisenhower’s heart attack on the 24th sent the Dow
Jones Industrial Average to its steepest one-day drop since the 1929
crash when trading resumed that Monday, before stocks recovered as the
president’s health improved. Consumer prices finished 1955 170.7% above
their 1913 level, essentially unchanged from where they
stood a year earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1955: $100 is worth $271 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1955/