$100 in 1936 is worth $140 in 1946,
because prices increased 40.3% over that period, an average of
3.44% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$140
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
40.3%
Average inflation rate
3.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$140
Price difference ($100 base)
$40.29
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1936 → 1946
$140
$100 in 1946 → 1936
$71.28
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1946
Between 1936 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 40.3%, which works out to an average of
3.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1946: the 1936 dollar
lost 28.7% of its purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1936 amount converts to 1946 at the same ratio, 1.40: $1,000 becomes
$1,403, and $10,000 becomes $14,029.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.40
$5.00
$7.01
$10.00
$14.03
$20.00
$28.06
$50.00
$70.14
$100
$140
$500
$701
$1,000
$1,403
$5,000
$7,014
$10,000
$14,029
$100,000
$140,288
$1,000,000
$1,402,878
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1946
Between 1936 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 63.8%, while transportation rose the least, up 16.8%, against 40.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.44%
$140
Apparel
5.06%
$164
Food
4.62%
$157
Medical care
2.05%
$123
Transportation
1.56%
$117
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1936: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1936 to 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$140
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $106 by
1941, on its way to $140 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 1936 had the buying
power of $140; 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 1936 to 1946: $100 is worth $140 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1946/