$100 in 1955 is worth $271 in 1979,
because prices increased 170.9% over that period, an average of
4.24% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$271
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
170.9%
Average inflation rate
4.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$271
Price difference ($100 base)
$171
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1955 → 1979
$271
$100 in 1979 → 1955
$36.91
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1979
Between 1955 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 170.9%, which works out to an average of
4.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1979: the 1955 dollar
lost 63.1% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1979 at the same ratio, 2.71: $1,000 becomes
$2,709, and $10,000 becomes $27,090.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1979
$1.00
$2.71
$5.00
$13.54
$10.00
$27.09
$20.00
$54.18
$50.00
$135
$100
$271
$500
$1,354
$1,000
$2,709
$5,000
$13,545
$10,000
$27,090
$100,000
$270,896
$1,000,000
$2,708,955
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1979
Between 1955 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 270.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 97.9%, against 170.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.24%
$271
Medical care
5.61%
$371
Food
4.50%
$287
Transportation
4.28%
$273
Apparel
2.89%
$198
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$271
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $125 by
1967, on its way to $271 in 1979; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.3% in 1979, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $271; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1979: $100 is worth $271 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1979/