$100 in 1935 is worth $174 in 1949,
because prices increased 73.7% over that period, an average of
4.02% a year.
$100 in 1935 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.7%
Average inflation rate
4.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.72
CPI in 1935
13.7
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1935 → 1949
$174
$100 in 1949 → 1935
$57.56
What happened to prices between 1935 and 1949
Between 1935 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
4.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1935 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1949: the 1935 dollar
lost 42.4% of its purchasing power over
these 14 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.2% in 1935, a second straight annual increase after
1934’s turnaround, though the CPI still sat well below its
1929 peak and the recovery remained uneven and incomplete.
The year’s biggest legislative achievements aimed at making that unevenness
less punishing. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14,
creating federal old-age pensions and unemployment insurance funded by a new
payroll tax, the first federal safety net of its kind in U.S. history. That
spring, the Works Progress Administration had already begun putting millions
of unemployed Americans to work on public construction, arts, and
infrastructure projects, becoming the largest jobs program of the New Deal.
Congress added labor protections to the mix that July with the National
Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing most private-sector workers the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The human cost of the Dust Bowl was still
mounting on the Plains: the storm known as Black Sunday hit on April 14,
one of the worst of the decade, and continued drought kept driving farm
families off land that could no longer support them. Consumer prices ended
the year 38.4% above their 1913 level. First-class postage
held at 3 cents.
Every 1935 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,737, and $10,000 becomes $17,372.
Amount in 1935
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, 1935–1949
Between 1935 and 1949, food rose the most, up 101.6%, while medical care rose the least, up 45.1%, against 73.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1935
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1935 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.02%
$174
Food
5.14%
$202
Apparel
4.93%
$196
Transportation
3.21%
$156
Medical care
2.69%
$145
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1935: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1935 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.43% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1935–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1935, at end
1935–1940
0.43%
2.2%
$102
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1935
$100 from 1935 had already become $119 by
1942, 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 2.1% in 1938, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1935 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 1935 to 1949: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1935 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1935-to-1949/