$100 in 1955 is worth $937 in 2018,
because prices increased 837.0% over that period, an average of
3.62% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$937
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
837.0%
Average inflation rate
3.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$937
Price difference ($100 base)
$837
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1955 → 2018
$937
$100 in 2018 → 1955
$10.67
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2018
Between 1955 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 837.0%, which works out to an average of
3.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2018: the 1955 dollar
lost 89.3% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2018 at the same ratio, 9.37: $1,000 becomes
$9,370, and $10,000 becomes $93,697.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2018
$1.00
$9.37
$5.00
$46.85
$10.00
$93.70
$20.00
$187
$50.00
$468
$100
$937
$500
$4,685
$1,000
$9,370
$5,000
$46,848
$10,000
$93,697
$100,000
$936,966
$1,000,000
$9,369,664
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2018
Between 1955 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 2563.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 192.9%, against 837.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.62%
$937
Medical care
5.35%
$2,663
Food
3.57%
$912
Transportation
3.39%
$817
Apparel
1.72%
$293
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 2018
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.78% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$937
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $401 by
1985, on its way to $937 in 2018; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $937; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2018: $100 is worth $937 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2018/