$100 in 1955 is worth $156 in 1972,
because prices increased 56.0% over that period, an average of
2.65% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$156
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.0%
Average inflation rate
2.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$156
Price difference ($100 base)
$55.97
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1955 → 1972
$156
$100 in 1972 → 1955
$64.11
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1972
Between 1955 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.0%, which works out to an average of
2.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1972: the 1955 dollar
lost 35.9% of its purchasing power over
these 17 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.56: $1,000 becomes
$1,560, and $10,000 becomes $15,597.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.56
$5.00
$7.80
$10.00
$15.60
$20.00
$31.19
$50.00
$77.99
$100
$156
$500
$780
$1,000
$1,560
$5,000
$7,799
$10,000
$15,597
$100,000
$155,970
$1,000,000
$1,559,701
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1972
Between 1955 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 104.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 45.2%, against 56.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.65%
$156
Medical care
4.31%
$205
Transportation
2.60%
$155
Food
2.47%
$151
Apparel
2.22%
$145
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 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 3.79% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1972 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1955, at end
1955–1960
2.01%
10.4%
$110
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$145
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$156
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $114 by
1963, on its way to $156 in 1972; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.7% in 1970, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $156; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1972: $100 is worth $156 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1972/