$100 in 1951 is worth $105 in 1956,
because prices increased 4.6% over that period, an average of
0.91% a year.
$100 in 1951 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.6%
Average inflation rate
0.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.62
CPI in 1951
26
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1951 → 1956
$105
$100 in 1956 → 1951
$95.59
What happened to prices between 1951 and 1956
Between 1951 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 26 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.6%, which works out to an average of
0.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1951 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1956: the 1951 dollar
lost 4.4% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,046, and $10,000 becomes $10,462.
Amount in 1951
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.23
$10.00
$10.46
$20.00
$20.92
$50.00
$52.31
$100
$105
$500
$523
$1,000
$1,046
$5,000
$5,231
$10,000
$10,462
$100,000
$104,615
$1,000,000
$1,046,154
Inflation by spending category, 1951–1956
Between 1951 and 1956, medical care rose the most, up 18.9%, while food fell 0.7%, against 4.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1951
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1951 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.91%
$105
Medical care
3.52%
$119
Transportation
1.68%
$109
Apparel
-0.09%
$99.54
Food
-0.14%
$99.29
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 $105 in 1956; 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 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1951 had the buying
power of $105; 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 1951 to 1956: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1951 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1951-to-1956/