$100 in 1931 is worth $147 in 1947,
because prices increased 46.7% over that period, an average of
2.42% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$147
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
46.7%
Average inflation rate
2.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$147
Price difference ($100 base)
$46.71
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1931 → 1947
$147
$100 in 1947 → 1931
$68.16
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1947
Between 1931 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 46.7%, which works out to an average of
2.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.68 buys in 1947: the 1931 dollar
lost 31.8% of its purchasing power over
these 16 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1947 at the same ratio, 1.47: $1,000 becomes
$1,467, and $10,000 becomes $14,671.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.47
$5.00
$7.34
$10.00
$14.67
$20.00
$29.34
$50.00
$73.36
$100
$147
$500
$734
$1,000
$1,467
$5,000
$7,336
$10,000
$14,671
$100,000
$146,711
$1,000,000
$1,467,105
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1947
Between 1931 and 1947, food rose the most, up 86.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 81.4%, against 46.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.42%
$147
Food
3.98%
$187
Apparel
3.79%
$181
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$147
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $91.45 by
1939, on its way to $147 in 1947; 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 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $147; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1947: $100 is worth $147 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1947/