$100 in 1922 is worth $142 in 1949,
because prices increased 41.7% over that period, an average of
1.30% a year.
$100 in 1922 has
the same buying power as
$142
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
41.7%
Average inflation rate
1.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$142
Price difference ($100 base)
$41.67
CPI in 1922
16.8
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1922
-6.15%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1922 → 1949
$142
$100 in 1949 → 1922
$70.59
What happened to prices between 1922 and 1949
Between 1922 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.8 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 41.7%, which works out to an average of
1.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1922 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1949: the 1922 dollar
lost 29.4% of its purchasing power over
these 27 years.
Consumer prices fell another 6.1% in 1922, the second straight year of
decline, even as the broader economy climbed out of the Depression of
1920-21 and industrial production rebounded. The CPI had now given back
roughly a third of its wartime runup, though it stayed well above the
1913 baseline. Congress moved to shield that recovery from
foreign competition: the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, signed September 21,
raised duties on hundreds of imported goods to some of the highest levels in
U.S. history, a policy meant to protect farmers and manufacturers still
adjusting to postwar prices. Labor tension flared even as prices fell.
Roughly half a million bituminous coal miners struck that April over wage
cuts employers had imposed as prices dropped, and hundreds of thousands of
railroad shop workers walked out in July in a separate dispute over pay and
work rules, together the largest strike wave since 1919. Both disputes
dragged on for months and drew federal mediation before ending without full
concessions for the workers. First-class postage remained at 2 cents.
Every 1922 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.42: $1,000 becomes
$1,417, and $10,000 becomes $14,167.
Amount in 1922
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.42
$5.00
$7.08
$10.00
$14.17
$20.00
$28.33
$50.00
$70.83
$100
$142
$500
$708
$1,000
$1,417
$5,000
$7,083
$10,000
$14,167
$100,000
$141,667
$1,000,000
$1,416,667
Inflation by spending category, 1922–1949
Between 1922 and 1949, food rose the most, up 67.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 51.1%, against 41.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1922
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1922 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.30%
$142
Food
1.94%
$168
Apparel
1.54%
$151
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1922: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1922 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1922–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1922, at end
1922–1930
-0.07%
-0.6%
$99.40
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.33
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$142
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1922
$100 from 1922 had already become $81.55 by
1935, on its way to $142 in 1949; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1922 had the buying
power of $142; the year's average CPI of 23.8 is the level
behind every 1949 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1922 to 1949: $100 is worth $142 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1922 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1949/