$100 in 1943 is worth $155 in 1955,
because prices increased 54.9% over that period, an average of
3.71% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
54.9%
Average inflation rate
3.71% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$54.91
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1943 → 1955
$155
$100 in 1955 → 1943
$64.55
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1955
Between 1943 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 54.9%, which works out to an average of
3.71% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1955: the 1943 dollar
lost 35.4% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,549, and $10,000 becomes $15,491.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.75
$10.00
$15.49
$20.00
$30.98
$50.00
$77.46
$100
$155
$500
$775
$1,000
$1,549
$5,000
$7,746
$10,000
$15,491
$100,000
$154,913
$1,000,000
$1,549,133
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1955
Between 1943 and 1955, food rose the most, up 62.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 54.3%, against 54.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.71%
$155
Food
4.13%
$163
Medical care
4.13%
$163
Transportation
4.12%
$162
Apparel
3.68%
$154
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.15% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $138 by
1949, on its way to $155 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 1943 had the buying
power of $155; 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 1943 to 1955: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1955/