$100 in 1939 is worth $171 in 1949,
because prices increased 71.2% over that period, an average of
5.53% a year.
$100 in 1939 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.2%
Average inflation rate
5.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.22
CPI in 1939
13.9
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1939 → 1949
$171
$100 in 1949 → 1939
$58.40
What happened to prices between 1939 and 1949
Between 1939 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.2%, which works out to an average of
5.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1939 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1949: the 1939 dollar
lost 41.6% of its purchasing power over
these 10 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
Every 1939 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,712, and $10,000 becomes $17,122.
Amount in 1939
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.56
$10.00
$17.12
$20.00
$34.24
$50.00
$85.61
$100
$171
$500
$856
$1,000
$1,712
$5,000
$8,561
$10,000
$17,122
$100,000
$171,223
$1,000,000
$1,712,230
Inflation by spending category, 1939–1949
Between 1939 and 1949, food rose the most, up 111.9%, while medical care rose the least, up 43.7%, against 71.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1939
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1939 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.53%
$171
Food
7.80%
$212
Apparel
6.57%
$189
Transportation
4.45%
$155
Medical care
3.69%
$144
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1939: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1939 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.07% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1939–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1939, at end
1939–1940
0.72%
0.7%
$101
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1939
$100 from 1939 had already become $127 by
1944, on its way to $171 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 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1939 had the buying
power of $171; 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 1939 to 1949: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1939 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1949/