$100 in 1934 is worth $200 in 1955,
because prices increased 100.0% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1934 has
the same buying power as
$200
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
100.0%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$200
Price difference ($100 base)
$100
CPI in 1934
13.4
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1934 → 1955
$200
$100 in 1955 → 1934
$50.00
What happened to prices between 1934 and 1955
Between 1934 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.4 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 100.0%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1934 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1955: the 1934 dollar
lost 50.0% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1934 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 2.00: $1,000 becomes
$2,000, and $10,000 becomes $20,000.
Amount in 1934
Value in 1955
$1.00
$2.00
$5.00
$10.00
$10.00
$20.00
$20.00
$40.00
$50.00
$100
$100
$200
$500
$1,000
$1,000
$2,000
$5,000
$10,000
$10,000
$20,000
$100,000
$200,000
$1,000,000
$2,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1934–1955
Between 1934 and 1955, food rose the most, up 139.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 108.3%, against 100.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1934
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1934 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$200
Food
4.25%
$240
Apparel
3.55%
$208
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1934: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1934 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1934–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1934, at end
1934–1940
0.73%
4.5%
$104
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$180
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$200
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1934
$100 from 1934 had already become $131 by
1944, on its way to $200 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1934 had the buying
power of $200; 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 1934 to 1955: $100 is worth $200 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1934 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1934-to-1955/