$100 in 1937 is worth $165 in 1949,
because prices increased 65.3% over that period, an average of
4.28% a year.
$100 in 1937 has
the same buying power as
$165
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
65.3%
Average inflation rate
4.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$165
Price difference ($100 base)
$65.28
CPI in 1937
14.4
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1937
3.60%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1937 → 1949
$165
$100 in 1949 → 1937
$60.50
What happened to prices between 1937 and 1949
Between 1937 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.4 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 65.3%, which works out to an average of
4.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1937 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1949: the 1937 dollar
lost 39.5% of its purchasing power over
these 12 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% in 1937, the fastest pace since before the
Depression and the fourth straight year of gains, leaving prices 10.8% above
their 1933 trough though still 15.8% below the
1929 peak. The recovery did not last the year. The National
Bureau of Economic Research dates a new business cycle peak to that May, the
start of what became known as the Recession of 1937-38. Policy tightened on
two fronts at once: the Federal Reserve had doubled bank reserve
requirements over the preceding year to head off inflation it worried was
building, and the federal government pulled back its own spending even as
new Social Security payroll taxes began draining money from paychecks
months before the first benefit checks went out. Together they choked off a
recovery that had not yet reached its pre-Depression footing. Not every
milestone that year was economic. The Golden Gate Bridge opened to traffic
on May 27 after four years of construction, at the time the longest
suspension bridge span in the world, a rare bright spot in a year that would
end with the economy sliding backward again. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
Every 1937 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.65: $1,000 becomes
$1,653, and $10,000 becomes $16,528.
Amount in 1937
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.65
$5.00
$8.26
$10.00
$16.53
$20.00
$33.06
$50.00
$82.64
$100
$165
$500
$826
$1,000
$1,653
$5,000
$8,264
$10,000
$16,528
$100,000
$165,278
$1,000,000
$1,652,778
Inflation by spending category, 1937–1949
Between 1937 and 1949, food rose the most, up 90.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 43.7%, against 65.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1937
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1937 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.28%
$165
Food
5.53%
$191
Apparel
5.28%
$185
Transportation
3.57%
$152
Medical care
3.07%
$144
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1937: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1937 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1937–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1937, at end
1937–1940
-0.93%
-2.8%
$97.22
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$165
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1937
$100 from 1937 had already become $120 by
1943, on its way to $165 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 1937 had the buying
power of $165; 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 1937 to 1949: $100 is worth $165 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1937-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1937 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1937-to-1949/