$100 in 1955 is worth $752 in 2006,
because prices increased 652.2% over that period, an average of
4.04% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$752
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
652.2%
Average inflation rate
4.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$752
Price difference ($100 base)
$652
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1955 → 2006
$752
$100 in 2006 → 1955
$13.29
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2006
Between 1955 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 652.2%, which works out to an average of
4.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2006: the 1955 dollar
lost 86.7% of its purchasing power over
these 51 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 2006 at the same ratio, 7.52: $1,000 becomes
$7,522, and $10,000 becomes $75,224.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2006
$1.00
$7.52
$5.00
$37.61
$10.00
$75.22
$20.00
$150
$50.00
$376
$100
$752
$500
$3,761
$1,000
$7,522
$5,000
$37,612
$10,000
$75,224
$100,000
$752,239
$1,000,000
$7,522,388
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2006
Between 1955 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 1747.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.6%, against 652.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.04%
$752
Medical care
5.88%
$1,847
Food
3.90%
$702
Transportation
3.89%
$701
Apparel
2.03%
$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 2006
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 1955–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$752
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $339 by
1981, on its way to $752 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $752; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2006: $100 is worth $752 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2006/