$100 in 1927 is worth $137 in 1949,
because prices increased 36.8% over that period, an average of
1.43% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$137
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
36.8%
Average inflation rate
1.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$137
Price difference ($100 base)
$36.78
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1927 → 1949
$137
$100 in 1949 → 1927
$73.11
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1949
Between 1927 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 36.8%, which works out to an average of
1.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1949: the 1927 dollar
lost 26.9% of its purchasing power over
these 22 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.37: $1,000 becomes
$1,368, and $10,000 becomes $13,678.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.37
$5.00
$6.84
$10.00
$13.68
$20.00
$27.36
$50.00
$68.39
$100
$137
$500
$684
$1,000
$1,368
$5,000
$6,839
$10,000
$13,678
$100,000
$136,782
$1,000,000
$1,367,816
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1949
Between 1927 and 1949, apparel rose the most, up 61.3%, while food rose the least, up 52.4%, against 36.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.43%
$137
Apparel
2.20%
$161
Food
1.93%
$152
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 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 1927–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.46
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $81.03 by
1938, on its way to $137 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 1927 had the buying
power of $137; 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 1927 to 1949: $100 is worth $137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1949/