$100 in 1955 is worth $114 in 1963,
because prices increased 14.2% over that period, an average of
1.67% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
14.2%
Average inflation rate
1.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$14.18
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1955 → 1963
$114
$100 in 1963 → 1955
$87.58
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1963
Between 1955 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 14.2%, which works out to an average of
1.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1963: the 1955 dollar
lost 12.4% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,142, and $10,000 becomes $11,418.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.71
$10.00
$11.42
$20.00
$22.84
$50.00
$57.09
$100
$114
$500
$571
$1,000
$1,142
$5,000
$5,709
$10,000
$11,418
$100,000
$114,179
$1,000,000
$1,141,791
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1963
Between 1955 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 32.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.3%, against 14.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.67%
$114
Medical care
3.57%
$132
Transportation
2.28%
$120
Food
1.41%
$112
Apparel
1.12%
$109
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$114
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $109 by
1959, on its way to $114 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $114; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1963: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1963/