$100 in 1951 is worth $103 in 1955,
because prices increased 3.1% over that period, an average of
0.76% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$103
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.1%
Average inflation rate
0.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$103
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.08
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1951 → 1955
$103
$100 in 1955 → 1951
$97.01
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1955
Between 1951 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.1%, which works out to an average of
0.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1955: the 1951 dollar
lost 3.0% of its purchasing power over
these 4 years.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
Every 1951 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.03: $1,000 becomes
$1,031, and $10,000 becomes $10,308.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.03
$5.00
$5.15
$10.00
$10.31
$20.00
$20.62
$50.00
$51.54
$100
$103
$500
$515
$1,000
$1,031
$5,000
$5,154
$10,000
$10,308
$100,000
$103,077
$1,000,000
$1,030,769
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1955
Between 1951 and 1955, medical care rose the most, up 14.5%, while apparel fell 2.3%, against 3.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.76%
$103
Medical care
3.44%
$114
Transportation
1.72%
$107
Food
-0.36%
$98.58
Apparel
-0.57%
$97.72
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1951: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1951
$100 from 1951 had already become $103 by
1953, on its way to $103 in 1955; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.9% in 1952, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $103; 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 1951 to 1955: $100 is worth $103 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1955/