$100 in 1933 is worth $150 in 1946,
because prices increased 50.0% over that period, an average of
3.17% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$150
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
50.0%
Average inflation rate
3.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$150
Price difference ($100 base)
$50.00
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1933 → 1946
$150
$100 in 1946 → 1933
$66.67
What happened to prices between 1933 and 1946
Between 1933 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 50.0%, which works out to an average of
3.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1946: the 1933 dollar
lost 33.3% of its purchasing power over
these 13 years.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
Every 1933 amount converts to 1946 at the same ratio, 1.50: $1,000 becomes
$1,500, and $10,000 becomes $15,000.
Amount in 1933
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.50
$5.00
$7.50
$10.00
$15.00
$20.00
$30.00
$50.00
$75.00
$100
$150
$500
$750
$1,000
$1,500
$5,000
$7,500
$10,000
$15,000
$100,000
$150,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
Inflation by spending category, 1933–1946
Between 1933 and 1946, food rose the most, up 90.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 83.0%, against 50.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.17%
$150
Food
5.08%
$190
Apparel
4.76%
$183
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1933: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1933 to 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (1.06% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1933–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1933, at end
1933–1940
1.06%
7.7%
$108
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$150
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $107 by
1939, on its way to $150 in 1946; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $150; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1933 to 1946: $100 is worth $150 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1946/