$100 in 1955 is worth $118 in 1965,
because prices increased 17.5% over that period, an average of
1.63% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$118
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
17.5%
Average inflation rate
1.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$118
Price difference ($100 base)
$17.54
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1955 → 1965
$118
$100 in 1965 → 1955
$85.08
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1965
Between 1955 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 17.5%, which works out to an average of
1.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.85 buys in 1965: the 1955 dollar
lost 14.9% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.18: $1,000 becomes
$1,175, and $10,000 becomes $11,754.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.18
$5.00
$5.88
$10.00
$11.75
$20.00
$23.51
$50.00
$58.77
$100
$118
$500
$588
$1,000
$1,175
$5,000
$5,877
$10,000
$11,754
$100,000
$117,537
$1,000,000
$1,175,373
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1965
Between 1955 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 38.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 11.4%, against 17.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.63%
$118
Medical care
3.31%
$138
Transportation
2.14%
$124
Food
1.48%
$116
Apparel
1.09%
$111
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1965 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$118
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $110 by
1960, on its way to $118 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $118; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1965: $100 is worth $118 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1965/