$100 in 1931 is worth $179 in 1956,
because prices increased 78.9% over that period, an average of
2.35% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$179
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
78.9%
Average inflation rate
2.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$179
Price difference ($100 base)
$78.95
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1931 → 1956
$179
$100 in 1956 → 1931
$55.88
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1956
Between 1931 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 78.9%, which works out to an average of
2.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1956: the 1931 dollar
lost 44.1% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.79: $1,000 becomes
$1,789, and $10,000 becomes $17,895.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.79
$5.00
$8.95
$10.00
$17.89
$20.00
$35.79
$50.00
$89.47
$100
$179
$500
$895
$1,000
$1,789
$5,000
$8,947
$10,000
$17,895
$100,000
$178,947
$1,000,000
$1,789,474
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1956
Between 1931 and 1956, food rose the most, up 117.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 98.6%, against 78.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.35%
$179
Food
3.15%
$217
Apparel
2.78%
$199
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 1956
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 1931–1956 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
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$179
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $114 by
1943, on its way to $179 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 1931 had the buying
power of $179; 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 1931 to 1956: $100 is worth $179 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1956/