$100 in 1929 is worth $157 in 1955,
because prices increased 56.7% over that period, an average of
1.74% a year.
$100 in 1929 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.7%
Average inflation rate
1.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.73
CPI in 1929
17.1
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1929 → 1955
$157
$100 in 1955 → 1929
$63.81
What happened to prices between 1929 and 1955
Between 1929 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
1.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1929 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1955: the 1929 dollar
lost 36.2% of its purchasing power over
these 26 years.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
Every 1929 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,567, and $10,000 becomes $15,673.
Amount in 1929
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, 1929–1955
Between 1929 and 1955, apparel rose the most, up 73.7%, while food rose the least, up 68.5%, against 56.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1929
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1929 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.74%
$157
Apparel
2.15%
$174
Food
2.03%
$168
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1929: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1929 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.3% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1929–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1929, at end
1929–1930
-2.34%
-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 1929
$100 from 1929 had already become $95.32 by
1942, 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.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1929 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 1929 to 1955: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1929 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1929-to-1955/