$100 in 1932 is worth $174 in 1949,
because prices increased 73.7% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1932 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.7%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.72
CPI in 1932
13.7
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1932
-9.87%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1932 → 1949
$174
$100 in 1949 → 1932
$57.56
What happened to prices between 1932 and 1949
Between 1932 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.7 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 73.7%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1932 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1949: the 1932 dollar
lost 42.4% of its purchasing power over
these 17 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the steepest single-year drop in the
CPI’s history to that point and the third straight year of decline following
1930 and 1931. Wages, farm incomes, and
industrial output all kept falling, and Congress tried to arrest the credit
collapse by creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that January,
capitalized at $500 million with authority to borrow up to $1.5 billion to
lend directly to banks, railroads, and other struggling businesses. Relief
did not reach ordinary households as quickly. That summer, tens of thousands
of World War I veterans and their families camped in Washington demanding
early payment of a service bonus not due until 1945; in July, U.S. Army
troops under General Douglas MacArthur forcibly dispersed the encampment, an
episode that badly damaged the Hoover administration’s standing months
before an election it was already losing. Voters delivered their verdict on
November 8, electing Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide over the
incumbent Hoover on a promise of relief and a “new deal for the American
people.” Roosevelt would not take office until the following March, leaving
a long and difficult transition during the depths of the crisis. First-class
postage rose from 2 cents to 3 cents on July 6, the first change to the rate
since 1919.
Every 1932 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,737, and $10,000 becomes $17,372.
Amount in 1932
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.69
$10.00
$17.37
$20.00
$34.74
$50.00
$86.86
$100
$174
$500
$869
$1,000
$1,737
$5,000
$8,686
$10,000
$17,372
$100,000
$173,723
$1,000,000
$1,737,226
Inflation by spending category, 1932–1949
Between 1932 and 1949, food rose the most, up 133.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 109.2%, against 73.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1932
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1932 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$174
Food
5.12%
$234
Apparel
4.44%
$209
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1932: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1932 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.27% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1932–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1932, at end
1932–1940
0.27%
2.2%
$102
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1932
$100 from 1932 had already become $102 by
1940, on its way to $174 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 5.1% in 1933, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1932 had the buying
power of $174; 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 1932 to 1949: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1932-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1932 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1932-to-1949/