$100 in 1955 is worth $966 in 2020,
because prices increased 865.7% over that period, an average of
3.55% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$966
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
865.7%
Average inflation rate
3.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$966
Price difference ($100 base)
$866
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1955 → 2020
$966
$100 in 2020 → 1955
$10.36
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2020
Between 1955 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 865.7%, which works out to an average of
3.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2020: the 1955 dollar
lost 89.6% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.66: $1,000 becomes
$9,657, and $10,000 becomes $96,571.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.66
$5.00
$48.29
$10.00
$96.57
$20.00
$193
$50.00
$483
$100
$966
$500
$4,829
$1,000
$9,657
$5,000
$48,286
$10,000
$96,571
$100,000
$965,713
$1,000,000
$9,657,127
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2020
Between 1955 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2751.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 175.2%, against 865.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.55%
$966
Medical care
5.29%
$2,851
Food
3.54%
$961
Transportation
3.21%
$780
Apparel
1.57%
$275
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1955–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$966
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $401 by
1985, on its way to $966 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $966; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2020: $100 is worth $966 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2020/