$100 in 1935 is worth $196 in 1955,
because prices increased 95.6% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1935 has
the same buying power as
$196
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
95.6%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$196
Price difference ($100 base)
$95.62
CPI in 1935
13.7
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1935 → 1955
$196
$100 in 1955 → 1935
$51.12
What happened to prices between 1935 and 1955
Between 1935 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.7 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 95.6%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1935 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1955: the 1935 dollar
lost 48.9% of its purchasing power over
these 20 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.2% in 1935, a second straight annual increase after
1934’s turnaround, though the CPI still sat well below its
1929 peak and the recovery remained uneven and incomplete.
The year’s biggest legislative achievements aimed at making that unevenness
less punishing. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14,
creating federal old-age pensions and unemployment insurance funded by a new
payroll tax, the first federal safety net of its kind in U.S. history. That
spring, the Works Progress Administration had already begun putting millions
of unemployed Americans to work on public construction, arts, and
infrastructure projects, becoming the largest jobs program of the New Deal.
Congress added labor protections to the mix that July with the National
Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing most private-sector workers the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The human cost of the Dust Bowl was still
mounting on the Plains: the storm known as Black Sunday hit on April 14,
one of the worst of the decade, and continued drought kept driving farm
families off land that could no longer support them. Consumer prices ended
the year 38.4% above their 1913 level. First-class postage
held at 3 cents.
Every 1935 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.96: $1,000 becomes
$1,956, and $10,000 becomes $19,562.
Amount in 1935
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.96
$5.00
$9.78
$10.00
$19.56
$20.00
$39.12
$50.00
$97.81
$100
$196
$500
$978
$1,000
$1,956
$5,000
$9,781
$10,000
$19,562
$100,000
$195,620
$1,000,000
$1,956,204
Inflation by spending category, 1935–1955
Between 1935 and 1955, food rose the most, up 124.2%, while medical care rose the least, up 78.4%, against 95.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1935
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1935 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$196
Food
4.12%
$224
Apparel
3.69%
$206
Transportation
3.03%
$182
Medical care
2.94%
$178
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1935: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1935 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.43% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1935–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1935, at end
1935–1940
0.43%
2.2%
$102
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$176
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$196
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1935
$100 from 1935 had already become $131 by
1945, on its way to $196 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 1935 had the buying
power of $196; 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 1935 to 1955: $100 is worth $196 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1935 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1955/