$100 in 1920 is worth $134 in 1955,
because prices increased 34.0% over that period, an average of
0.84% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.0%
Average inflation rate
0.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1920 → 1955
$134
$100 in 1955 → 1920
$74.63
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1955
Between 1920 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.0%, which works out to an average of
0.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1955: the 1920 dollar
lost 25.4% of its purchasing power over
these 35 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,340, and $10,000 becomes $13,400.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.70
$10.00
$13.40
$20.00
$26.80
$50.00
$67.00
$100
$134
$500
$670
$1,000
$1,340
$5,000
$6,700
$10,000
$13,400
$100,000
$134,000
$1,000,000
$1,340,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1955
Between 1920 and 1955, food rose the most, up 32.4%, while apparel fell 0.5%, against 34.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.84%
$134
Food
0.80%
$132
Apparel
-0.01%
$99.54
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $70.50 by
1938, on its way to $134 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, 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 1920 had the buying
power of $134; 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 1920 to 1955: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1955/