$100 in 1933 is worth $183 in 1949,
because prices increased 83.1% over that period, an average of
3.85% a year.
$100 in 1933 has
the same buying power as
$183
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
83.1%
Average inflation rate
3.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$183
Price difference ($100 base)
$83.08
CPI in 1933
13
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1933 → 1949
$183
$100 in 1949 → 1933
$54.62
What happened to prices between 1933 and 1949
Between 1933 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 13 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 83.1%, which works out to an average of
3.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1933 bought what
$0.55 buys in 1949: the 1933 dollar
lost 45.4% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1949 at the same ratio, 1.83: $1,000 becomes
$1,831, and $10,000 becomes $18,308.
Amount in 1933
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.83
$5.00
$9.15
$10.00
$18.31
$20.00
$36.62
$50.00
$91.54
$100
$183
$500
$915
$1,000
$1,831
$5,000
$9,154
$10,000
$18,308
$100,000
$183,077
$1,000,000
$1,830,769
Inflation by spending category, 1933–1949
Between 1933 and 1949, food rose the most, up 140.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 117.0%, against 83.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1933
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1933 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.85%
$183
Food
5.63%
$240
Apparel
4.96%
$217
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 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (1.06% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1933–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1933, at end
1933–1940
1.06%
7.7%
$108
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$183
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1933
$100 from 1933 had already become $113 by
1941, on its way to $183 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1933 had the buying
power of $183; 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 1933 to 1949: $100 is worth $183 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1933 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1933-to-1949/