$100 in 1956 is worth $694 in 2004,
because prices increased 594.5% over that period, an average of
4.12% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$694
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
594.5%
Average inflation rate
4.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$694
Price difference ($100 base)
$594
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1956 → 2004
$694
$100 in 2004 → 1956
$14.40
What happened to prices between 1956 and 2004
Between 1956 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 594.5%, which works out to an average of
4.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.14 buys in 2004: the 1956 dollar
lost 85.6% of its purchasing power over
these 48 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 2004 at the same ratio, 6.94: $1,000 becomes
$6,945, and $10,000 becomes $69,449.
Amount in 1956
Value in 2004
$1.00
$6.94
$5.00
$34.72
$10.00
$69.45
$20.00
$139
$50.00
$347
$100
$694
$500
$3,472
$1,000
$6,945
$5,000
$34,724
$10,000
$69,449
$100,000
$694,485
$1,000,000
$6,944,853
Inflation by spending category, 1956–2004
Between 1956 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 1540.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 175.5%, against 594.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.12%
$694
Medical care
6.00%
$1,641
Food
4.03%
$665
Transportation
3.88%
$623
Apparel
2.13%
$276
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 2004
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 1956–2004 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$633
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$694
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $303 by
1980, on its way to $694 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $694; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 2004: $100 is worth $694 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2004/