$100 in 1956 is worth $827 in 2011,
because prices increased 727.0% over that period, an average of
3.92% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$827
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
727.0%
Average inflation rate
3.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$827
Price difference ($100 base)
$727
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1956 → 2011
$827
$100 in 2011 → 1956
$12.09
What happened to prices between 1956 and 2011
Between 1956 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 727.0%, which works out to an average of
3.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2011: the 1956 dollar
lost 87.9% of its purchasing power over
these 55 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 2011 at the same ratio, 8.27: $1,000 becomes
$8,270, and $10,000 becomes $82,698.
Amount in 1956
Value in 2011
$1.00
$8.27
$5.00
$41.35
$10.00
$82.70
$20.00
$165
$50.00
$413
$100
$827
$500
$4,135
$1,000
$8,270
$5,000
$41,349
$10,000
$82,698
$100,000
$826,982
$1,000,000
$8,269,816
Inflation by spending category, 1956–2011
Between 1956 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2017.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 179.4%, against 727.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.92%
$827
Medical care
5.71%
$2,118
Food
3.89%
$814
Transportation
3.88%
$811
Apparel
1.89%
$279
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 2011
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 1956–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$802
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$827
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $382 by
1984, on its way to $827 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $827; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 2011: $100 is worth $827 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2011/