$100 in 1936 is worth $160 in 1947,
because prices increased 60.4% over that period, an average of
4.39% a year.
$100 in 1936 has
the same buying power as
$160
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
60.4%
Average inflation rate
4.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$160
Price difference ($100 base)
$60.43
CPI in 1936
13.9
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1936 → 1947
$160
$100 in 1947 → 1936
$62.33
What happened to prices between 1936 and 1947
Between 1936 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 60.4%, which works out to an average of
4.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1936 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1947: the 1936 dollar
lost 37.7% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.60: $1,000 becomes
$1,604, and $10,000 becomes $16,043.
Amount in 1936
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.60
$5.00
$8.02
$10.00
$16.04
$20.00
$32.09
$50.00
$80.22
$100
$160
$500
$802
$1,000
$1,604
$5,000
$8,022
$10,000
$16,043
$100,000
$160,432
$1,000,000
$1,604,317
Inflation by spending category, 1936–1947
Between 1936 and 1947, food rose the most, up 91.3%, while transportation rose the least, up 29.4%, against 60.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1936
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1936 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.39%
$160
Food
6.07%
$191
Apparel
6.01%
$190
Medical care
2.58%
$132
Transportation
2.37%
$129
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 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.18% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1936–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1936, at end
1936–1940
0.18%
0.7%
$101
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$160
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1936
$100 from 1936 had already become $106 by
1941, on its way to $160 in 1947; 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 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1936 had the buying
power of $160; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1936 to 1947: $100 is worth $160 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1936 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1936-to-1947/