$100 in 1955 is worth $101 in 1956,
because prices increased 1.5% over that period, an average of
1.49% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.5%
Average inflation rate
1.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.49
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1955 → 1956
$101
$100 in 1956 → 1955
$98.53
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1956
Between 1955 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.5%, which works out to an average of
1.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1956: the 1955 dollar
lost 1.5% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
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.
Every 1955 amount converts to 1956 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,015, and $10,000 becomes $10,149.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.07
$10.00
$10.15
$20.00
$20.30
$50.00
$50.75
$100
$101
$500
$507
$1,000
$1,015
$5,000
$5,075
$10,000
$10,149
$100,000
$101,493
$1,000,000
$1,014,925
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1956
Between 1955 and 1956, medical care rose the most, up 3.8%, while food rose the least, up 0.7%, against 1.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.49%
$101
Medical care
3.85%
$104
Apparel
1.86%
$102
Transportation
1.55%
$102
Food
0.72%
$101
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1955: 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 1955
$100 from 1955grew to $101 by 1956; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1955 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 1955 to 1956: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1956/