$100 in 1955 is worth $137 in 1969,
because prices increased 36.9% over that period, an average of
2.27% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$137
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
36.9%
Average inflation rate
2.27% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$137
Price difference ($100 base)
$36.94
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1955 → 1969
$137
$100 in 1969 → 1955
$73.02
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1969
Between 1955 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 36.9%, which works out to an average of
2.27% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1969: the 1955 dollar
lost 27.0% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.37: $1,000 becomes
$1,369, and $10,000 becomes $13,694.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.37
$5.00
$6.85
$10.00
$13.69
$20.00
$27.39
$50.00
$68.47
$100
$137
$500
$685
$1,000
$1,369
$5,000
$6,847
$10,000
$13,694
$100,000
$136,940
$1,000,000
$1,369,403
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1969
Between 1955 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 75.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 32.4%, against 36.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.27%
$137
Medical care
4.09%
$175
Transportation
2.35%
$138
Food
2.08%
$133
Apparel
2.02%
$132
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 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 2.42% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1969 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $113 by
1962, on its way to $137 in 1969; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.5% in 1969, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $137; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1969: $100 is worth $137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1969/