$100 in 1914 is worth $268 in 1955,
because prices increased 168.0% over that period, an average of
2.43% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$268
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
168.0%
Average inflation rate
2.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$268
Price difference ($100 base)
$168
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1914 → 1955
$268
$100 in 1955 → 1914
$37.31
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1955
Between 1914 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 168.0%, which works out to an average of
2.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1955: the 1914 dollar
lost 62.7% of its purchasing power over
these 41 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 2.68: $1,000 becomes
$2,680, and $10,000 becomes $26,800.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1955
$1.00
$2.68
$5.00
$13.40
$10.00
$26.80
$20.00
$53.60
$50.00
$134
$100
$268
$500
$1,340
$1,000
$2,680
$5,000
$13,400
$10,000
$26,800
$100,000
$268,000
$1,000,000
$2,680,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1955
Between 1914 and 1955, apparel rose the most, up 186.0%, while food rose the least, up 172.5%, against 168.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.43%
$268
Apparel
2.60%
$286
Food
2.48%
$273
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$268
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $134 by
1934, on its way to $268 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 1914 had the buying
power of $268; 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 1914 to 1955: $100 is worth $268 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1955/