$100 in 1955 is worth $1,092 in 2022,
because prices increased 992.0% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$1,092
in 2022
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
992.0%
Average inflation rate
3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,092
Price difference ($100 base)
$992
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2022
292.655
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2022
8.00%
$100 in 1955 → 2022
$1,092
$100 in 2022 → 1955
$9.16
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2022
Between 1955 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 992.0%, which works out to an average of
3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2022: the 1955 dollar
lost 90.8% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 2022 at the same ratio, 10.92: $1,000 becomes
$10,920, and $10,000 becomes $109,200.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2022
$1.00
$10.92
$5.00
$54.60
$10.00
$109
$20.00
$218
$50.00
$546
$100
$1,092
$500
$5,460
$1,000
$10,920
$5,000
$54,600
$10,000
$109,200
$100,000
$1,091,996
$1,000,000
$10,919,963
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2022
Between 1955 and 2022, medical care rose the most, up 2903.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 196.2%, against 992.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.63%
$1,092
Medical care
5.21%
$3,003
Food
3.64%
$1,099
Transportation
3.55%
$1,032
Apparel
1.63%
$296
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 2022
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 1955–2022 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
2020–2022
6.34%
13.1%
$1,092
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $488 by
1990, on its way to $1,092 in 2022; 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: 2022
In 2022, prices rose 8.0% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $1,092; the year's average CPI of 292.655 is the level
behind every 2022 figure on this page.
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,092 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2022/