$100 in 1955 is worth $463 in 1989,
because prices increased 362.7% over that period, an average of
4.61% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$463
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
362.7%
Average inflation rate
4.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$463
Price difference ($100 base)
$363
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1955 → 1989
$463
$100 in 1989 → 1955
$21.61
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1989
Between 1955 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 362.7%, which works out to an average of
4.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.22 buys in 1989: the 1955 dollar
lost 78.4% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1989 at the same ratio, 4.63: $1,000 becomes
$4,627, and $10,000 becomes $46,269.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1989
$1.00
$4.63
$5.00
$23.13
$10.00
$46.27
$20.00
$92.54
$50.00
$231
$100
$463
$500
$2,313
$1,000
$4,627
$5,000
$23,134
$10,000
$46,269
$100,000
$462,687
$1,000,000
$4,626,866
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1989
Between 1955 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 720.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 176.5%, against 362.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.61%
$463
Medical care
6.39%
$820
Food
4.52%
$450
Transportation
4.47%
$442
Apparel
3.04%
$276
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 1989
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 1955–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$463
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $151 by
1971, on its way to $463 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $463; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1989: $100 is worth $463 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1989/