$100 in 1955 is worth $105 in 1957,
because prices increased 4.9% over that period, an average of
2.40% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.9%
Average inflation rate
2.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.85
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1955 → 1957
$105
$100 in 1957 → 1955
$95.37
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1957
Between 1955 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.9%, which works out to an average of
2.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.95 buys in 1957: the 1955 dollar
lost 4.6% of its purchasing power over
these 2 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,049, and $10,000 becomes $10,485.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.24
$10.00
$10.49
$20.00
$20.97
$50.00
$52.43
$100
$105
$500
$524
$1,000
$1,049
$5,000
$5,243
$10,000
$10,485
$100,000
$104,851
$1,000,000
$1,048,507
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1957
Between 1955 and 1957, medical care rose the most, up 8.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 3.7%, against 4.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.40%
$105
Medical care
4.04%
$108
Transportation
3.62%
$107
Food
1.96%
$104
Apparel
1.85%
$104
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 1955 had already become $101 by
1956, on its way to $105 in 1957; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and the smallest rise was 1.5% in 1956.
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $105; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1957: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1957/