$100 in 1956 is worth $355 in 1982,
because prices increased 254.8% over that period, an average of
4.99% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$355
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
254.8%
Average inflation rate
4.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$355
Price difference ($100 base)
$255
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1956 → 1982
$355
$100 in 1982 → 1956
$28.19
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1982
Between 1956 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 254.8%, which works out to an average of
4.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1982: the 1956 dollar
lost 71.8% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1982 at the same ratio, 3.55: $1,000 becomes
$3,548, and $10,000 becomes $35,478.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1982
$1.00
$3.55
$5.00
$17.74
$10.00
$35.48
$20.00
$70.96
$50.00
$177
$100
$355
$500
$1,774
$1,000
$3,548
$5,000
$17,739
$10,000
$35,478
$100,000
$354,779
$1,000,000
$3,547,794
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1982
Between 1956 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 389.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 123.8%, against 254.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.99%
$355
Medical care
6.30%
$489
Transportation
5.16%
$370
Food
4.91%
$348
Apparel
3.15%
$224
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.14% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1956, at end
1956–1960
2.14%
8.8%
$109
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$143
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$303
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$355
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $135 by
1969, on its way to $355 in 1982; 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 the smallest rise was 0.7% in 1959.
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $355; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 1982: $100 is worth $355 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1982/