$100 in 1918 is worth $177 in 1955,
because prices increased 77.5% over that period, an average of
1.56% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$177
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
77.5%
Average inflation rate
1.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$177
Price difference ($100 base)
$77.48
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1918 → 1955
$177
$100 in 1955 → 1918
$56.34
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1955
Between 1918 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 77.5%, which works out to an average of
1.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1955: the 1918 dollar
lost 43.7% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
1918 brought the steepest annual price increase the CPI had recorded:
consumer prices rose 18.0% for the year, edging out 1917’s already sharp
17.4% as the economy stayed at full wartime mobilization for most of the
year. A first-class stamp cost 3 cents, up from 2 cents the previous
November under the War Revenue Act’s wartime tax increases. The war itself
ended on November 11, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allied
powers after more than four years of fighting in Europe, but the inflation
built up over a year and a half of mobilization did not disappear along with
the fighting. The bigger public health story that year was the influenza
pandemic that reached the U.S. in a mild spring wave and then returned that
fall in a far deadlier form, eventually killing roughly 675,000 Americans,
more than the country’s combat losses in the war. It hit factories, docks,
and shops alongside households, adding disruption to an economy already
strained by wartime demand. Prices would keep climbing even after the
armistice, into the postwar surge of 1919.
Every 1918 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.77: $1,000 becomes
$1,775, and $10,000 becomes $17,748.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.77
$5.00
$8.87
$10.00
$17.75
$20.00
$35.50
$50.00
$88.74
$100
$177
$500
$887
$1,000
$1,775
$5,000
$8,874
$10,000
$17,748
$100,000
$177,483
$1,000,000
$1,774,834
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1955
Between 1918 and 1955, food rose the most, up 66.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 57.1%, against 77.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.56%
$177
Food
1.39%
$166
Apparel
1.23%
$157
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1918: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1918 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$111
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$92.72
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$160
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$177
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $92.05 by
1936, on its way to $177 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, 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 1918 had the buying
power of $177; 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 1918 to 1955: $100 is worth $177 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1955/