$100 in 1956 is worth $545 in 1994,
because prices increased 444.9% over that period, an average of
4.56% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$545
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
444.9%
Average inflation rate
4.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$545
Price difference ($100 base)
$445
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1956 → 1994
$545
$100 in 1994 → 1956
$18.35
What happened to prices between 1956 and 1994
Between 1956 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 444.9%, which works out to an average of
4.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1994: the 1956 dollar
lost 81.6% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 1994 at the same ratio, 5.45: $1,000 becomes
$5,449, and $10,000 becomes $54,485.
Amount in 1956
Value in 1994
$1.00
$5.45
$5.00
$27.24
$10.00
$54.49
$20.00
$109
$50.00
$272
$100
$545
$500
$2,724
$1,000
$5,449
$5,000
$27,243
$10,000
$54,485
$100,000
$544,853
$1,000,000
$5,448,529
Inflation by spending category, 1956–1994
Between 1956 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1016.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 205.3%, against 444.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.56%
$545
Medical care
6.56%
$1,116
Food
4.41%
$515
Transportation
4.39%
$513
Apparel
2.98%
$305
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 1994
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.14% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$481
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$545
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $181 by
1974, on its way to $545 in 1994; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $545; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 1994: $100 is worth $545 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-1994/