$100 in 1954 is worth $99.63 in 1955,
because prices declined 0.4% over that period, an average of
0.37% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$99.63
in 1955
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-0.4%
Average inflation rate
-0.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$99.63
Price difference ($100 base)
-$0.37
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1955
26.8
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
$100 in 1954 → 1955
$99.63
$100 in 1955 → 1954
$100
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1955
Between 1954 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 26.8.
Cumulatively, prices declined 0.4%, which works out to an average of
-0.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$1.00 buys in 1955: the 1954 dollar
gained 0.4% in purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
Every 1954 amount converts to 1955 at the same ratio, 1.00: $1,000 becomes
$996, and $10,000 becomes $9,963.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1955
$1.00
$1.00
$5.00
$4.98
$10.00
$9.96
$20.00
$19.93
$50.00
$49.81
$100
$99.63
$500
$498
$1,000
$996
$5,000
$4,981
$10,000
$9,963
$100,000
$99,628
$1,000,000
$996,283
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1955
Between 1954 and 1955, medical care rose the most, up 2.2%, while food fell 1.4%, against 0.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1955, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.37%
$99.63
Medical care
2.25%
$102
Apparel
-0.46%
$99.54
Transportation
-1.15%
$98.85
Food
-1.42%
$98.58
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1954: 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 1954
$100 from 1954shrank to $99.63 by 1955; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1955, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1954 had the buying
power of $99.63; 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 1954 to 1955: $100 is worth $99.63 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1955/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1955. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1955/