$100 in 1948 is worth $111 in 1955,
because prices increased 11.2% over that period, an average of
1.53% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$111
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
11.2%
Average inflation rate
1.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$111
Price difference ($100 base)
$11.20
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1948 → 1955
$111
$100 in 1955 → 1948
$89.93
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1955
Between 1948 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 11.2%, which works out to an average of
1.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.90 buys in 1955: the 1948 dollar
lost 10.1% of its purchasing power over
these 7 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.11: $1,000 becomes
$1,112, and $10,000 becomes $11,120.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.11
$5.00
$5.56
$10.00
$11.12
$20.00
$22.24
$50.00
$55.60
$100
$111
$500
$556
$1,000
$1,112
$5,000
$5,560
$10,000
$11,120
$100,000
$111,203
$1,000,000
$1,112,033
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1955
Between 1948 and 1955, medical care rose the most, up 26.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 0.9%, against 11.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.53%
$111
Medical care
3.40%
$126
Transportation
3.27%
$125
Food
0.91%
$107
Apparel
0.13%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1955
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.15% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1955 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1955
2.15%
11.2%
$111
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $108 by
1951, on its way to $111 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $111; 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 1948 to 1955: $100 is worth $111 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1955/