$100 in 1955 is worth $360 in 1982,
because prices increased 260.1% over that period, an average of
4.86% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$360
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
260.1%
Average inflation rate
4.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$360
Price difference ($100 base)
$260
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1955 → 1982
$360
$100 in 1982 → 1955
$27.77
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1982
Between 1955 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 260.1%, which works out to an average of
4.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1982: the 1955 dollar
lost 72.2% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1982 at the same ratio, 3.60: $1,000 becomes
$3,601, and $10,000 becomes $36,007.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1982
$1.00
$3.60
$5.00
$18.00
$10.00
$36.01
$20.00
$72.01
$50.00
$180
$100
$360
$500
$1,800
$1,000
$3,601
$5,000
$18,004
$10,000
$36,007
$100,000
$360,075
$1,000,000
$3,600,746
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1982
Between 1955 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 408.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 128.0%, against 260.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.86%
$360
Medical care
6.21%
$508
Transportation
5.03%
$376
Food
4.75%
$350
Apparel
3.10%
$228
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$307
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$360
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $130 by
1968, on its way to $360 in 1982; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $360; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1982: $100 is worth $360 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1982/