$100 in 1955 is worth $729 in 2005,
because prices increased 628.7% over that period, an average of
4.05% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$729
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
628.7%
Average inflation rate
4.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$729
Price difference ($100 base)
$629
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1955 → 2005
$729
$100 in 2005 → 1955
$13.72
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2005
Between 1955 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 628.7%, which works out to an average of
4.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2005: the 1955 dollar
lost 86.3% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 2005 at the same ratio, 7.29: $1,000 becomes
$7,287, and $10,000 becomes $72,873.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2005
$1.00
$7.29
$5.00
$36.44
$10.00
$72.87
$20.00
$146
$50.00
$364
$100
$729
$500
$3,644
$1,000
$7,287
$5,000
$36,437
$10,000
$72,873
$100,000
$728,731
$1,000,000
$7,287,313
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2005
Between 1955 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 1675.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.6%, against 628.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.05%
$729
Medical care
5.92%
$1,776
Food
3.93%
$686
Transportation
3.89%
$674
Apparel
2.07%
$279
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 2005
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 1955–2005 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$643
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$729
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $271 by
1979, on its way to $729 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $729; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2005: $100 is worth $729 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2005/