$100 in 1946 is worth $137 in 1955,
because prices increased 37.4% over that period, an average of
3.60% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$137
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
37.4%
Average inflation rate
3.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$137
Price difference ($100 base)
$37.44
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1946 → 1955
$137
$100 in 1955 → 1946
$72.76
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1955
Between 1946 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 37.4%, which works out to an average of
3.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1955: the 1946 dollar
lost 27.2% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1946 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.37: $1,000 becomes
$1,374, and $10,000 becomes $13,744.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.37
$5.00
$6.87
$10.00
$13.74
$20.00
$27.49
$50.00
$68.72
$100
$137
$500
$687
$1,000
$1,374
$5,000
$6,872
$10,000
$13,744
$100,000
$137,436
$1,000,000
$1,374,359
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1955
Between 1946 and 1955, transportation rose the most, up 54.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 24.7%, against 37.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.60%
$137
Transportation
4.95%
$154
Medical care
4.26%
$146
Food
3.84%
$140
Apparel
2.48%
$125
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1946: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1946 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.15% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $124 by
1950, on its way to $137 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 1946 had the buying
power of $137; 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 1946 to 1955: $100 is worth $137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1955/