$100 in 1956 is worth $116 in 1965,
because prices increased 15.8% over that period, an average of
1.64% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$116
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
15.8%
Average inflation rate
1.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$116
Price difference ($100 base)
$15.81
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1956 → 1965
$116
$100 in 1965 → 1956
$86.35
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1965
Between 1956 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 15.8%, which works out to an average of
1.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1965: the 1956 dollar
lost 13.7% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.16: $1,000 becomes
$1,158, and $10,000 becomes $11,581.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.16
$5.00
$5.79
$10.00
$11.58
$20.00
$23.16
$50.00
$57.90
$100
$116
$500
$579
$1,000
$1,158
$5,000
$5,790
$10,000
$11,581
$100,000
$115,809
$1,000,000
$1,158,088
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1965
Between 1956 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 33.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.4%, against 15.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.64%
$116
Medical care
3.25%
$133
Transportation
2.21%
$122
Food
1.57%
$115
Apparel
1.00%
$109
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.14% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1965 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$116
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $109 by
1960, on its way to $116 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $116; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 1965: $100 is worth $116 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1965/