$100 in 1916 is worth $250 in 1956,
because prices increased 149.5% over that period, an average of
2.31% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$250
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
149.5%
Average inflation rate
2.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$250
Price difference ($100 base)
$150
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1916 → 1956
$250
$100 in 1956 → 1916
$40.07
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1956
Between 1916 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 149.5%, which works out to an average of
2.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.40 buys in 1956: the 1916 dollar
lost 59.9% of its purchasing power over
these 40 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1956 at the same ratio, 2.50: $1,000 becomes
$2,495, and $10,000 becomes $24,954.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1956
$1.00
$2.50
$5.00
$12.48
$10.00
$24.95
$20.00
$49.91
$50.00
$125
$100
$250
$500
$1,248
$1,000
$2,495
$5,000
$12,477
$10,000
$24,954
$100,000
$249,541
$1,000,000
$2,495,413
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1956
Between 1916 and 1956, apparel rose the most, up 160.1%, while food rose the least, up 147.8%, against 149.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.31%
$250
Apparel
2.42%
$260
Food
2.29%
$248
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1956
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1956 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$250
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $128 by
1936, on its way to $250 in 1956; 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: 1956
In 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $250; the year's average CPI of 27.2 is the level
behind every 1956 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1956: $100 is worth $250 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1956/