$100 in 1926 is worth $151 in 1955,
because prices increased 51.4% over that period, an average of
1.44% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$151
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
51.4%
Average inflation rate
1.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$151
Price difference ($100 base)
$51.41
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1926 → 1955
$151
$100 in 1955 → 1926
$66.04
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1955
Between 1926 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 51.4%, which works out to an average of
1.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1955: the 1926 dollar
lost 34.0% of its purchasing power over
these 29 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.51: $1,000 becomes
$1,514, and $10,000 becomes $15,141.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.51
$5.00
$7.57
$10.00
$15.14
$20.00
$30.28
$50.00
$75.71
$100
$151
$500
$757
$1,000
$1,514
$5,000
$7,571
$10,000
$15,141
$100,000
$151,412
$1,000,000
$1,514,124
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1955
Between 1926 and 1955, apparel rose the most, up 65.6%, while food rose the least, up 63.5%, against 51.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.44%
$151
Apparel
1.76%
$166
Food
1.71%
$164
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 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 1926–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$151
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $79.10 by
1940, on its way to $151 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.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $151; 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 1926 to 1955: $100 is worth $151 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1955/