$100 in 1955 is worth $108 in 1958,
because prices increased 7.8% over that period, an average of
2.55% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1958
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
7.8%
Average inflation rate
2.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$7.84
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1958
28.9
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1958
2.85%
$100 in 1955 → 1958
$108
$100 in 1958 → 1955
$92.73
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1958
Between 1955 and 1958, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 28.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 7.8%, which works out to an average of
2.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.93 buys in 1958: the 1955 dollar
lost 7.3% of its purchasing power over
these 3 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 1958 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,078, and $10,000 becomes $10,784.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1958
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.39
$10.00
$10.78
$20.00
$21.57
$50.00
$53.92
$100
$108
$500
$539
$1,000
$1,078
$5,000
$5,392
$10,000
$10,784
$100,000
$107,836
$1,000,000
$1,078,358
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1958
Between 1955 and 1958, medical care rose the most, up 13.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 4.0%, against 7.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1958, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.55%
$108
Medical care
4.22%
$113
Transportation
3.49%
$111
Food
2.80%
$109
Apparel
1.30%
$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 $108 in 1958; 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 1958, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $108; the year's average CPI of 28.9 is the level
behind every 1958 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.8% in 1958, down only slightly from
1957’s 3.3% even as the country sank into the sharpest
postwar recession to that point, an early sign that inflation and a
shrinking economy could coexist rather than trade off against each other.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the downturn’s trough to
that April, with unemployment peaking near 7.5% that summer, the worst
reading since the 1930s. The Post Office raised first-class postage to 4
cents that August 1, up from 3 cents, the rate’s first change since 1932.
Washington answered the Soviet Union’s technological lead that summer
too: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29,
establishing NASA, which opened for business that October 1 to compete
with the Soviet space program after the shock of Sputnik the year before.
Consumer prices finished 1958 191.9% above their 1913
level. The minimum wage held at $1.00 an hour, and first-class postage
rose to 4 cents that August, the first increase since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1958: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1958/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1958. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1958/