$100 in 1947 is worth $122 in 1956,
because prices increased 22.0% over that period, an average of
2.23% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$122
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.0%
Average inflation rate
2.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$122
Price difference ($100 base)
$21.97
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1947 → 1956
$122
$100 in 1956 → 1947
$81.99
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1956
Between 1947 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.0%, which works out to an average of
2.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1956: the 1947 dollar
lost 18.0% of its purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1947 amount converts to 1956 at the same ratio, 1.22: $1,000 becomes
$1,220, and $10,000 becomes $12,197.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.22
$5.00
$6.10
$10.00
$12.20
$20.00
$24.39
$50.00
$60.99
$100
$122
$500
$610
$1,000
$1,220
$5,000
$6,099
$10,000
$12,197
$100,000
$121,973
$1,000,000
$1,219,731
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1956
Between 1947 and 1956, transportation rose the most, up 41.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.5%, against 22.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.23%
$122
Transportation
3.94%
$142
Medical care
3.81%
$140
Food
1.68%
$116
Apparel
1.02%
$110
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1947: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1947 to 1956
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 2.62% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1956 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1947, at end
1947–1950
2.62%
8.1%
$108
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$122
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $117 by
1951, on its way to $122 in 1956; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 8.1% in 1948, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $122; 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 1947 to 1956: $100 is worth $122 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1956/