$100 in 1954 is worth $101 in 1956,
because prices increased 1.1% over that period, an average of
0.56% a year.
$100 in 1954 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.1%
Average inflation rate
0.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.12
CPI in 1954
26.9
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1954 → 1956
$101
$100 in 1956 → 1954
$98.90
What happened to prices between 1954 and 1956
Between 1954 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.9 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.1%, which works out to an average of
0.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1954 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1956: the 1954 dollar
lost 1.1% of its purchasing power over
these 2 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,011, and $10,000 becomes $10,112.
Amount in 1954
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.06
$10.00
$10.11
$20.00
$20.22
$50.00
$50.56
$100
$101
$500
$506
$1,000
$1,011
$5,000
$5,056
$10,000
$10,112
$100,000
$101,115
$1,000,000
$1,011,152
Inflation by spending category, 1954–1956
Between 1954 and 1956, medical care rose the most, up 6.2%, while food fell 0.7%, against 1.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1954
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1954 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.56%
$101
Medical care
3.04%
$106
Apparel
0.69%
$101
Transportation
0.19%
$100
Food
-0.36%
$99.29
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 1954 had already become $99.63 by
1955, on its way to $101 in 1956; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.5% in 1956, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1954 had the buying
power of $101; 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 1954 to 1956: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1954 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1954-to-1956/