$100 in 1956 is worth $110 in 1961,
because prices increased 9.9% over that period, an average of
1.91% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.9%
Average inflation rate
1.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.93
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1956 → 1961
$110
$100 in 1961 → 1956
$90.97
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1961
Between 1956 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.9%, which works out to an average of
1.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1961: the 1956 dollar
lost 9.0% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
Every 1956 amount converts to 1961 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,099, and $10,000 becomes $10,993.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.50
$10.00
$10.99
$20.00
$21.99
$50.00
$54.96
$100
$110
$500
$550
$1,000
$1,099
$5,000
$5,496
$10,000
$10,993
$100,000
$109,926
$1,000,000
$1,099,265
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1961
Between 1956 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 21.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 5.5%, against 9.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.91%
$110
Medical care
3.91%
$121
Transportation
2.81%
$115
Food
1.66%
$109
Apparel
1.08%
$105
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1956: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1956 to 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.14% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$110
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $106 by
1958, on its way to $110 in 1961; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.3% in 1957, and the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 1961: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1961/