$100 in 1955 is worth $1,170 in 2024,
because prices increased 1070.5% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1955 has
the same buying power as
$1,170
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1070.5%
Average inflation rate
3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,170
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,070
CPI in 1955
26.8
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1955
-0.37%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1955 → 2024
$1,170
$100 in 2024 → 1955
$8.54
What happened to prices between 1955 and 2024
Between 1955 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 26.8 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1070.5%, which works out to an average of
3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1955 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2024: the 1955 dollar
lost 91.5% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 2024 at the same ratio, 11.70: $1,000 becomes
$11,705, and $10,000 becomes $117,048.
Amount in 1955
Value in 2024
$1.00
$11.70
$5.00
$58.52
$10.00
$117
$20.00
$234
$50.00
$585
$100
$1,170
$500
$5,852
$1,000
$11,705
$5,000
$58,524
$10,000
$117,048
$100,000
$1,170,481
$1,000,000
$11,704,813
Inflation by spending category, 1955–2024
Between 1955 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 2998.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 206.5%, against 1070.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1955
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1955 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.63%
$1,170
Medical care
5.10%
$3,098
Food
3.65%
$1,188
Transportation
3.47%
$1,049
Apparel
1.64%
$306
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 2024
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 1955–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,170
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1955
$100 from 1955 had already become $488 by
1990, on its way to $1,170 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1955 had the buying
power of $1,170; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1955 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,170 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1955 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1955-to-2024/