$100 in 1926 is worth $154 in 1956,
because prices increased 53.7% over that period, an average of
1.44% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$154
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
53.7%
Average inflation rate
1.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$154
Price difference ($100 base)
$53.67
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1926 → 1956
$154
$100 in 1956 → 1926
$65.07
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1956
Between 1926 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 53.7%, which works out to an average of
1.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1956: the 1926 dollar
lost 34.9% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.54: $1,000 becomes
$1,537, and $10,000 becomes $15,367.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.54
$5.00
$7.68
$10.00
$15.37
$20.00
$30.73
$50.00
$76.84
$100
$154
$500
$768
$1,000
$1,537
$5,000
$7,684
$10,000
$15,367
$100,000
$153,672
$1,000,000
$1,536,723
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1956
Between 1926 and 1956, apparel rose the most, up 68.7%, while food rose the least, up 64.7%, against 53.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.44%
$154
Apparel
1.76%
$169
Food
1.68%
$165
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 1956
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 1926–1956 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
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$154
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $83.05 by
1941, on its way to $154 in 1956; 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 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $154; 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 1926 to 1956: $100 is worth $154 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1956/