$100 in 1955 is worth $113 in 1962,
because prices increased 12.7% over that period, an average of
1.72% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1962
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
12.7%
Average inflation rate
1.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$12.69
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1962
30.2
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1962
1.00%
$100 in 1955 → 1962
$113
$100 in 1962 → 1955
$88.74
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1962
Between 1955 and 1962, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 30.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 12.7%, which works out to an average of
1.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.89 buys in 1962: the 1955 dollar
lost 11.3% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1962 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,127, and $10,000 becomes $11,269.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1962
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.63
$10.00
$11.27
$20.00
$22.54
$50.00
$56.34
$100
$113
$500
$563
$1,000
$1,127
$5,000
$5,634
$10,000
$11,269
$100,000
$112,687
$1,000,000
$1,126,866
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1962
Between 1955 and 1962, medical care rose the most, up 29.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 7.9%, against 12.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1962, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.72%
$113
Medical care
3.72%
$129
Transportation
2.56%
$119
Food
1.38%
$110
Apparel
1.10%
$108
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 1962
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 1955–1962 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1962
1.01%
2.0%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $108 by
1958, on its way to $113 in 1962; 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 1962, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $113; the year's average CPI of 30.2 is the level
behind every 1962 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1962, matching 1961’s pace as
inflation stayed remarkably low and unemployment slowly declined from its
recession-era highs. That January, Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers
introduced “wage-price guideposts,” non-binding targets meant to keep pay
and price increases in line with productivity growth without formal
controls. The space race delivered a milestone that February, when John
Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule circled Earth three times, making him the
first American to orbit the planet. Markets got a scare that spring: a
dispute over U.S. Steel’s April price increase, which Kennedy publicly
pressured the company into rolling back, rattled investors, and the Dow
Jones Industrial Average fell about 5.7% on May 28, its steepest one-day
drop since the 1929 crash. The year’s gravest moment came that October,
when American reconnaissance photographed Soviet nuclear missiles in
Cuba, setting off a 13-day standoff that brought the two superpowers
closer to nuclear war than at any other point in the Cold War before the
Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge
not to invade the island. Consumer prices finished 1962 205.1% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.15 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1962: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1962/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1962. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1962/