$100 in 1919 is worth $155 in 1955,
because prices increased 54.9% over that period, an average of
1.22% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
54.9%
Average inflation rate
1.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$54.91
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1919 → 1955
$155
$100 in 1955 → 1919
$64.55
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1955
Between 1919 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 54.9%, which works out to an average of
1.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1955: the 1919 dollar
lost 35.4% of its purchasing power over
these 36 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,549, and $10,000 becomes $15,491.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.75
$10.00
$15.49
$20.00
$30.98
$50.00
$77.46
$100
$155
$500
$775
$1,000
$1,549
$5,000
$7,746
$10,000
$15,491
$100,000
$154,913
$1,000,000
$1,549,133
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1955
Between 1919 and 1955, food rose the most, up 49.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 18.5%, against 54.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.22%
$155
Food
1.12%
$149
Apparel
0.47%
$119
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $83.24 by
1937, on its way to $155 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 1919 had the buying
power of $155; 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 1919 to 1955: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1955/