$100 in 1941 is worth $182 in 1955,
because prices increased 82.3% over that period, an average of
4.38% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$182
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
82.3%
Average inflation rate
4.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$182
Price difference ($100 base)
$82.31
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1941 → 1955
$182
$100 in 1955 → 1941
$54.85
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1955
Between 1941 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 82.3%, which works out to an average of
4.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.55 buys in 1955: the 1941 dollar
lost 45.1% of its purchasing power over
these 14 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1941 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.82: $1,000 becomes
$1,823, and $10,000 becomes $18,231.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.82
$5.00
$9.12
$10.00
$18.23
$20.00
$36.46
$50.00
$91.16
$100
$182
$500
$912
$1,000
$1,823
$5,000
$9,116
$10,000
$18,231
$100,000
$182,313
$1,000,000
$1,823,129
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1955
Between 1941 and 1955, food rose the most, up 112.2%, while medical care rose the least, up 75.0%, against 82.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.38%
$182
Food
5.52%
$212
Apparel
4.62%
$188
Transportation
4.10%
$176
Medical care
4.08%
$175
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1941: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1941 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.65% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.15% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1941–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1941, at end
1941–1950
5.65%
63.9%
$164
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$182
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $164 by
1948, on its way to $182 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $182; 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 1941 to 1955: $100 is worth $182 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1955/