$100 in 1948 is worth $113 in 1956,
because prices increased 12.9% over that period, an average of
1.52% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
12.9%
Average inflation rate
1.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$12.86
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1948 → 1956
$113
$100 in 1956 → 1948
$88.60
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1956
Between 1948 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 12.9%, which works out to an average of
1.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.89 buys in 1956: the 1948 dollar
lost 11.4% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,129, and $10,000 becomes $11,286.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.64
$10.00
$11.29
$20.00
$22.57
$50.00
$56.43
$100
$113
$500
$564
$1,000
$1,129
$5,000
$5,643
$10,000
$11,286
$100,000
$112,863
$1,000,000
$1,128,631
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1956
Between 1948 and 1956, medical care rose the most, up 31.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 2.8%, against 12.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.52%
$113
Medical care
3.46%
$131
Transportation
3.05%
$127
Food
0.88%
$107
Apparel
0.35%
$103
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 1956
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1956 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $110 by
1952, on its way to $113 in 1956; 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 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $113; 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 1948 to 1956: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1956/