$100 in 1919 is worth $157 in 1956,
because prices increased 57.2% over that period, an average of
1.23% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
57.2%
Average inflation rate
1.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$57.23
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1919 → 1956
$157
$100 in 1956 → 1919
$63.60
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1956
Between 1919 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 57.2%, which works out to an average of
1.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1956: the 1919 dollar
lost 36.4% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,572, and $10,000 becomes $15,723.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.57
$5.00
$7.86
$10.00
$15.72
$20.00
$31.45
$50.00
$78.61
$100
$157
$500
$786
$1,000
$1,572
$5,000
$7,861
$10,000
$15,723
$100,000
$157,225
$1,000,000
$1,572,254
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1956
Between 1919 and 1956, food rose the most, up 50.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.7%, against 57.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.23%
$157
Food
1.11%
$151
Apparel
0.51%
$121
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 1956
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 1919–1956 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
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$157
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 $157 in 1956; 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: 1956
In 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $157; 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 1919 to 1956: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1956/