$100 in 1931 is worth $176 in 1955,
because prices increased 76.3% over that period, an average of
2.39% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$176
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
76.3%
Average inflation rate
2.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$176
Price difference ($100 base)
$76.32
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1931 → 1955
$176
$100 in 1955 → 1931
$56.72
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1955
Between 1931 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 76.3%, which works out to an average of
2.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1955: the 1931 dollar
lost 43.3% of its purchasing power over
these 24 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.76: $1,000 becomes
$1,763, and $10,000 becomes $17,632.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.76
$5.00
$8.82
$10.00
$17.63
$20.00
$35.26
$50.00
$88.16
$100
$176
$500
$882
$1,000
$1,763
$5,000
$8,816
$10,000
$17,632
$100,000
$176,316
$1,000,000
$1,763,158
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1955
Between 1931 and 1955, food rose the most, up 115.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 95.0%, against 76.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.39%
$176
Food
3.25%
$216
Apparel
2.82%
$195
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$176
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $114 by
1943, on its way to $176 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 1931 had the buying
power of $176; 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 1931 to 1955: $100 is worth $176 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1955/