$100 in 1955 is worth $1,011 in 2021,
because prices increased 911.1% over that period, an average of
3.57% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$1,011
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
911.1%
Average inflation rate
3.57% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,011
Price difference ($100 base)
$911
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1955 → 2021
$1,011
$100 in 2021 → 1955
$9.89
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2021
Between 1955 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 911.1%, which works out to an average of
3.57% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2021: the 1955 dollar
lost 90.1% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 2021 at the same ratio, 10.11: $1,000 becomes
$10,111, and $10,000 becomes $101,108.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2021
$1.00
$10.11
$5.00
$50.55
$10.00
$101
$20.00
$202
$50.00
$506
$100
$1,011
$500
$5,055
$1,000
$10,111
$5,000
$50,554
$10,000
$101,108
$100,000
$1,011,082
$1,000,000
$10,110,821
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2021
Between 1955 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 2786.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 182.0%, against 911.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.57%
$1,011
Medical care
5.23%
$2,886
Food
3.55%
$999
Transportation
3.37%
$894
Apparel
1.58%
$282
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 2021
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 1955–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,011
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $488 by
1990, on its way to $1,011 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $1,011; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,011 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2021/