$100 in 1936 is worth $193 in 1955,
because prices increased 92.8% over that period, an average of
3.52% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$193
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
92.8%
Average inflation rate
3.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$193
Price difference ($100 base)
$92.81
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1936 → 1955
$193
$100 in 1955 → 1936
$51.87
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1955
Between 1936 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 92.8%, which works out to an average of
3.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1955: the 1936 dollar
lost 48.1% of its purchasing power over
these 19 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.93: $1,000 becomes
$1,928, and $10,000 becomes $19,281.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.93
$5.00
$9.64
$10.00
$19.28
$20.00
$38.56
$50.00
$96.40
$100
$193
$500
$964
$1,000
$1,928
$5,000
$9,640
$10,000
$19,281
$100,000
$192,806
$1,000,000
$1,928,058
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1955
Between 1936 and 1955, food rose the most, up 120.6%, while medical care rose the least, up 78.4%, against 92.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.52%
$193
Food
4.25%
$221
Apparel
3.83%
$204
Transportation
3.15%
$180
Medical care
3.09%
$178
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$193
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $129 by
1945, on its way to $193 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 1936 had the buying
power of $193; 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 1936 to 1955: $100 is worth $193 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1955/