$100 in 1944 is worth $152 in 1955,
because prices increased 52.3% over that period, an average of
3.90% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$152
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.3%
Average inflation rate
3.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$152
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.27
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1944 → 1955
$152
$100 in 1955 → 1944
$65.67
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1955
Between 1944 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.3%, which works out to an average of
3.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1955: the 1944 dollar
lost 34.3% of its purchasing power over
these 11 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.52: $1,000 becomes
$1,523, and $10,000 becomes $15,227.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.52
$5.00
$7.61
$10.00
$15.23
$20.00
$30.45
$50.00
$76.14
$100
$152
$500
$761
$1,000
$1,523
$5,000
$7,614
$10,000
$15,227
$100,000
$152,273
$1,000,000
$1,522,727
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1955
Between 1944 and 1955, food rose the most, up 64.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 44.0%, against 52.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.90%
$152
Food
4.63%
$164
Transportation
4.50%
$162
Medical care
4.18%
$157
Apparel
3.37%
$144
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.15% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$152
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $135 by
1949, on its way to $152 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 1944 had the buying
power of $152; 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 1944 to 1955: $100 is worth $152 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1955/