$100 in 1955 is worth $553 in 1994,
because prices increased 453.0% over that period, an average of
4.48% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$553
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
453.0%
Average inflation rate
4.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$553
Price difference ($100 base)
$453
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1955 → 1994
$553
$100 in 1994 → 1955
$18.08
What happened to prices between 1955 and 1994
Between 1955 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 453.0%, which works out to an average of
4.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1994: the 1955 dollar
lost 81.9% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1994 at the same ratio, 5.53: $1,000 becomes
$5,530, and $10,000 becomes $55,299.
Amount in 1955
Value in 1994
$1.00
$5.53
$5.00
$27.65
$10.00
$55.30
$20.00
$111
$50.00
$276
$100
$553
$500
$2,765
$1,000
$5,530
$5,000
$27,649
$10,000
$55,299
$100,000
$552,985
$1,000,000
$5,529,851
Inflation by spending category, 1955–1994
Between 1955 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1059.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 211.0%, against 453.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.48%
$553
Medical care
6.48%
$1,159
Transportation
4.32%
$521
Food
4.31%
$519
Apparel
2.95%
$311
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 1994
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 1955–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$488
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$553
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $201 by
1975, on its way to $553 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $553; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 1994: $100 is worth $553 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-1994/