$100 in 1955 is worth $130 in 1968,
because prices increased 29.9% over that period, an average of
2.03% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$130
in 1968
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
29.9%
Average inflation rate
2.03% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$130
Price difference ($100 base)
$29.85
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1968
34.8
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1968
4.19%
$100 in 1955 → 1968
$130
$100 in 1968 → 1955
$77.01
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1968
Between 1955 and 1968, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 34.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 29.9%, which works out to an average of
2.03% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1968: the 1955 dollar
lost 23.0% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1968 at the same ratio, 1.30: $1,000 becomes
$1,299, and $10,000 becomes $12,985.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1968
$1.00
$1.30
$5.00
$6.49
$10.00
$12.99
$20.00
$25.97
$50.00
$64.93
$100
$130
$500
$649
$1,000
$1,299
$5,000
$6,493
$10,000
$12,985
$100,000
$129,851
$1,000,000
$1,298,507
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1968
Between 1955 and 1968, medical care rose the most, up 64.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 25.2%, against 29.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1968, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.03%
$130
Medical care
3.89%
$164
Transportation
2.21%
$133
Food
1.85%
$127
Apparel
1.74%
$125
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 1968
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.04% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1968 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1968
2.04%
17.6%
$130
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $112 by
1961, on its way to $130 in 1968; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 4.2% in 1968, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1968, prices rose 4.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $130; the year's average CPI of 34.8 is the level
behind every 1968 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in 1968, up sharply from 1967’s
3.1% and the fastest pace in 17 years, as Vietnam War spending and a tight
labor market pushed inflation higher despite the Federal Reserve’s
earlier tightening. The year was marked by political violence: Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April
4, touching off rioting in more than 100 cities, and Robert F. Kennedy was
shot in Los Angeles on June 5, moments after winning California’s
Democratic presidential primary, and died the next day. Washington tried
to answer the inflation problem directly that June 28, when Congress
passed a 10% income tax surcharge, the Revenue and Expenditure Control
Act, temporarily raising taxes and cutting spending to cool an economy
overheated by war and Great Society outlays; prices kept accelerating
anyway. The cost of living rose in smaller, more visible ways too:
first-class postage climbed to 6 cents that January 7, and the minimum
wage rose to $1.60 an hour that February 1, the final step of the
increase Congress had set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1968 251.5% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1968: $100 is worth $130 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1968/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1968. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1968/