$100 in 1955 is worth $243 in 1978,
because prices increased 143.3% over that period, an average of
3.94% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$243
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
143.3%
Average inflation rate
3.94% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$243
Price difference ($100 base)
$143
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1955 → 1978
$243
$100 in 1978 → 1955
$41.10
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1978
Between 1955 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 143.3%, which works out to an average of
3.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.41 buys in 1978: the 1955 dollar
lost 58.9% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.43: $1,000 becomes
$2,433, and $10,000 becomes $24,328.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.43
$5.00
$12.16
$10.00
$24.33
$20.00
$48.66
$50.00
$122
$100
$243
$500
$1,216
$1,000
$2,433
$5,000
$12,164
$10,000
$24,328
$100,000
$243,284
$1,000,000
$2,432,836
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1978
Between 1955 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 239.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 89.7%, against 143.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.94%
$243
Medical care
5.46%
$340
Food
4.22%
$259
Transportation
3.86%
$239
Apparel
2.82%
$190
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$243
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $121 by
1966, on its way to $243 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $243; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1978: $100 is worth $243 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1978/