$100 in 1945 is worth $149 in 1955,
because prices increased 48.9% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$149
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
48.9%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$149
Price difference ($100 base)
$48.89
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1945 → 1955
$149
$100 in 1955 → 1945
$67.16
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1955
Between 1945 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 48.9%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1955: the 1945 dollar
lost 32.8% of its purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.49: $1,000 becomes
$1,489, and $10,000 becomes $14,889.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.49
$5.00
$7.44
$10.00
$14.89
$20.00
$29.78
$50.00
$74.44
$100
$149
$500
$744
$1,000
$1,489
$5,000
$7,444
$10,000
$14,889
$100,000
$148,889
$1,000,000
$1,488,889
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1955
Between 1945 and 1955, transportation rose the most, up 62.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 36.6%, against 48.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$149
Transportation
4.96%
$162
Food
4.86%
$161
Medical care
4.34%
$153
Apparel
3.17%
$137
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.15% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$149
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $134 by
1950, on its way to $149 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 1945 had the buying
power of $149; 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 1945 to 1955: $100 is worth $149 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1955/