$100 in 1944 is worth $155 in 1956,
because prices increased 54.5% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$155
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
54.5%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$155
Price difference ($100 base)
$54.55
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1944 → 1956
$155
$100 in 1956 → 1944
$64.71
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1956
Between 1944 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 54.5%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1956: the 1944 dollar
lost 35.3% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.55: $1,000 becomes
$1,545, and $10,000 becomes $15,455.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.55
$5.00
$7.73
$10.00
$15.45
$20.00
$30.91
$50.00
$77.27
$100
$155
$500
$773
$1,000
$1,545
$5,000
$7,727
$10,000
$15,455
$100,000
$154,545
$1,000,000
$1,545,455
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1956
Between 1944 and 1956, food rose the most, up 65.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 46.6%, against 54.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$155
Food
4.30%
$166
Transportation
4.25%
$165
Medical care
4.15%
$163
Apparel
3.24%
$147
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 1956
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1956 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$155
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $137 by
1950, on its way to $155 in 1956; 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 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $155; the year's average CPI of 27.2 is the level
behind every 1956 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1956: $100 is worth $155 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1956/