$100 in 1956 is worth $789 in 2009,
because prices increased 688.7% over that period, an average of
3.97% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$789
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
688.7%
Average inflation rate
3.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$789
Price difference ($100 base)
$689
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1956 → 2009
$789
$100 in 2009 → 1956
$12.68
What happened to prices between 1956 and 2009
Between 1956 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 688.7%, which works out to an average of
3.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2009: the 1956 dollar
lost 87.3% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 2009 at the same ratio, 7.89: $1,000 becomes
$7,887, and $10,000 becomes $78,874.
Amount in 1956
Value in 2009
$1.00
$7.89
$5.00
$39.44
$10.00
$78.87
$20.00
$158
$50.00
$394
$100
$789
$500
$3,944
$1,000
$7,887
$5,000
$39,437
$10,000
$78,874
$100,000
$788,739
$1,000,000
$7,887,390
Inflation by spending category, 1956–2009
Between 1956 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 1887.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 174.8%, against 688.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.97%
$789
Medical care
5.80%
$1,987
Food
3.95%
$778
Transportation
3.69%
$684
Apparel
1.93%
$275
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 2009
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 1956–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$789
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $355 by
1982, on its way to $789 in 2009; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 2009, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $789; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 2009: $100 is worth $789 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2009/