$100 in 1955 is worth $839 in 2011,
because prices increased 739.3% over that period, an average of
3.87% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$839
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
739.3%
Average inflation rate
3.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$839
Price difference ($100 base)
$739
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1955 → 2011
$839
$100 in 2011 → 1955
$11.91
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2011
Between 1955 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 739.3%, which works out to an average of
3.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1955 dollar
lost 88.1% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.39: $1,000 becomes
$8,393, and $10,000 becomes $83,932.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.39
$5.00
$41.97
$10.00
$83.93
$20.00
$168
$50.00
$420
$100
$839
$500
$4,197
$1,000
$8,393
$5,000
$41,966
$10,000
$83,932
$100,000
$839,325
$1,000,000
$8,393,246
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2011
Between 1955 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2099.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.6%, against 739.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.87%
$839
Medical care
5.67%
$2,199
Transportation
3.84%
$823
Food
3.83%
$820
Apparel
1.89%
$285
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 2011
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 1955–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$814
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$839
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $372 by
1983, on its way to $839 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $839; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2011: $100 is worth $839 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2011/