$100 in 1955 is worth $409 in 1986,
because prices increased 309.0% over that period, an average of
4.65% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$409
in 1986
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
309.0%
Average inflation rate
4.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$409
Price difference ($100 base)
$309
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1986
109.6
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1986
1.86%
$100 in 1955 → 1986
$409
$100 in 1986 → 1955
$24.45
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1986
Between 1955 and 1986, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 109.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 309.0%, which works out to an average of
4.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1986: the 1955 dollar
lost 75.5% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1986 at the same ratio, 4.09: $1,000 becomes
$4,090, and $10,000 becomes $40,896.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1986
$1.00
$4.09
$5.00
$20.45
$10.00
$40.90
$20.00
$81.79
$50.00
$204
$100
$409
$500
$2,045
$1,000
$4,090
$5,000
$20,448
$10,000
$40,896
$100,000
$408,955
$1,000,000
$4,089,552
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1986
Between 1955 and 1986, medical care rose the most, up 570.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 146.9%, against 309.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1986, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.65%
$409
Medical care
6.33%
$670
Transportation
4.54%
$397
Food
4.51%
$392
Apparel
2.96%
$247
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 1986
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 1955–1986 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
1980–1986
4.87%
33.0%
$409
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $151 by
1971, on its way to $409 in 1986; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1986
In 1986, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $409; the year's average CPI of 109.6 is the level
behind every 1986 figure on this page.
1986 delivered the decade’s biggest one-year drop in inflation, and it came
almost entirely from a single source: oil. Saudi Arabia abandoned its policy
of restraining output to prop up prices, and world crude collapsed from
about $27 a barrel to under $10 by midyear. Gasoline, which had averaged
$1.12 a gallon in 1985, fell to 86 cents. With energy costs plunging,
headline CPI inflation for the year came in at just 1.9%, the lowest annual
rate since 1965 and a striking bookend to 1980’s 13.5% peak. The relief was
uneven: prices for most goods and services outside energy kept rising at a
moderate pace, so households that didn’t drive much or heat with oil felt
less of the difference. In October, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of
1986, a bipartisan overhaul that cut the top individual income tax rate from
50% to 28% while closing many deductions and shelters, the broadest rewrite
of the federal tax code since World War II. Between cheap gas and falling
interest rates, 1986 read like proof that the inflationary 1970s were a
closed chapter, six years after the U.S. economy had felt anything but
calm.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1986: $100 is worth $409 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1986/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1986. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1986/