$100 in 1955 is worth $112 in 1961,
because prices increased 11.6% over that period, an average of
1.84% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$112
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
11.6%
Average inflation rate
1.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$112
Price difference ($100 base)
$11.57
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1955 → 1961
$112
$100 in 1961 → 1955
$89.63
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1961
Between 1955 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 11.6%, which works out to an average of
1.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.90 buys in 1961: the 1955 dollar
lost 10.4% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.12: $1,000 becomes
$1,116, and $10,000 becomes $11,157.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.12
$5.00
$5.58
$10.00
$11.16
$20.00
$22.31
$50.00
$55.78
$100
$112
$500
$558
$1,000
$1,116
$5,000
$5,578
$10,000
$11,157
$100,000
$111,567
$1,000,000
$1,115,672
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1961
Between 1955 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 25.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.5%, against 11.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.84%
$112
Medical care
3.90%
$126
Transportation
2.60%
$117
Food
1.50%
$109
Apparel
1.21%
$107
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–).
Decade by decade: 1955 to 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$112
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $108 by
1958, on its way to $112 in 1961; 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 0.7% in 1959.
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $112; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1961: $100 is worth $112 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1961/