$100 in 1956 is worth $952 in 2020,
because prices increased 851.5% over that period, an average of
3.58% a year.
$100 in 1956 has
the same buying power as
$952
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
851.5%
Average inflation rate
3.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$952
Price difference ($100 base)
$852
CPI in 1956
27.2
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1956 → 2020
$952
$100 in 2020 → 1956
$10.51
What happened to prices between 1956 and 2020
Between 1956 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 27.2 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 851.5%, which works out to an average of
3.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1956 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2020: the 1956 dollar
lost 89.5% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 2020 at the same ratio, 9.52: $1,000 becomes
$9,515, and $10,000 becomes $95,151.
Amount in 1956
Value in 2020
$1.00
$9.52
$5.00
$47.58
$10.00
$95.15
$20.00
$190
$50.00
$476
$100
$952
$500
$4,758
$1,000
$9,515
$5,000
$47,576
$10,000
$95,151
$100,000
$951,511
$1,000,000
$9,515,110
Inflation by spending category, 1956–2020
Between 1956 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 2645.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 170.2%, against 851.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1956
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1956 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.58%
$952
Medical care
5.31%
$2,745
Food
3.59%
$954
Transportation
3.24%
$768
Apparel
1.57%
$270
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1956–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$952
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1956
$100 from 1956 had already become $403 by
1986, on its way to $952 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1956 had the buying
power of $952; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1956 to 2020: $100 is worth $952 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1956 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1956-to-2020/