$100 in 1955 is worth $401 in 1985,
because prices increased 301.5% over that period, an average of
4.74% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$401
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
301.5%
Average inflation rate
4.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$401
Price difference ($100 base)
$301
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1955 → 1985
$401
$100 in 1985 → 1955
$24.91
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1985
Between 1955 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 301.5%, which works out to an average of
4.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1985: the 1955 dollar
lost 75.1% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1985 at the same ratio, 4.01: $1,000 becomes
$4,015, and $10,000 becomes $40,149.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1985
$1.00
$4.01
$5.00
$20.07
$10.00
$40.15
$20.00
$80.30
$50.00
$201
$100
$401
$500
$2,007
$1,000
$4,015
$5,000
$20,075
$10,000
$40,149
$100,000
$401,493
$1,000,000
$4,014,925
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1985
Between 1955 and 1985, medical care rose the most, up 523.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 144.8%, against 301.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.74%
$401
Medical care
6.29%
$624
Transportation
4.84%
$412
Food
4.55%
$380
Apparel
3.03%
$245
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 1985
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$401
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $145 by
1970, on its way to $401 in 1985; 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 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $401; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1985: $100 is worth $401 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1985/