$100 in 1923 is worth $157 in 1955,
because prices increased 56.7% over that period, an average of
1.41% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.7%
Average inflation rate
1.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.73
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1923 → 1955
$157
$100 in 1955 → 1923
$63.81
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1955
Between 1923 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.7%, which works out to an average of
1.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1955: the 1923 dollar
lost 36.2% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,567, and $10,000 becomes $15,673.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.57
$5.00
$7.84
$10.00
$15.67
$20.00
$31.35
$50.00
$78.36
$100
$157
$500
$784
$1,000
$1,567
$5,000
$7,836
$10,000
$15,673
$100,000
$156,725
$1,000,000
$1,567,251
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1955
Between 1923 and 1955, food rose the most, up 80.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 58.3%, against 56.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.41%
$157
Food
1.86%
$181
Apparel
1.45%
$158
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$157
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $81.29 by
1939, on its way to $157 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 9.9% in 1932, 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 1923 had the buying
power of $157; 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 1923 to 1955: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1955/