$100 in 1955 is worth $801 in 2009,
because prices increased 700.5% over that period, an average of
3.93% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$801
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
700.5%
Average inflation rate
3.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$801
Price difference ($100 base)
$701
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1955 → 2009
$801
$100 in 2009 → 1955
$12.49
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2009
Between 1955 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 700.5%, which works out to an average of
3.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2009: the 1955 dollar
lost 87.5% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 2009 at the same ratio, 8.01: $1,000 becomes
$8,005, and $10,000 becomes $80,051.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2009
$1.00
$8.01
$5.00
$40.03
$10.00
$80.05
$20.00
$160
$50.00
$400
$100
$801
$500
$4,003
$1,000
$8,005
$5,000
$40,026
$10,000
$80,051
$100,000
$800,511
$1,000,000
$8,005,112
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2009
Between 1955 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1963.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 179.9%, against 700.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.93%
$801
Medical care
5.77%
$2,064
Food
3.89%
$784
Transportation
3.65%
$695
Apparel
1.92%
$280
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 2009
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 1955–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$801
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $339 by
1981, on its way to $801 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $801; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2009: $100 is worth $801 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2009/