$100 in 1939 is worth $694 in 1982,
because prices increased 594.2% over that period, an average of
4.61% a year.
$100 in 1939 has
the same buying power as
$694
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
594.2%
Average inflation rate
4.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$694
Price difference ($100 base)
$594
CPI in 1939
13.9
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1939 → 1982
$694
$100 in 1982 → 1939
$14.40
What happened to prices between 1939 and 1982
Between 1939 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 594.2%, which works out to an average of
4.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1939 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1982: the 1939 dollar
lost 85.6% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 1982 at the same ratio, 6.94: $1,000 becomes
$6,942, and $10,000 becomes $69,424.
Amount in 1939
Value in 1982
$1.00
$6.94
$5.00
$34.71
$10.00
$69.42
$20.00
$139
$50.00
$347
$100
$694
$500
$3,471
$1,000
$6,942
$5,000
$34,712
$10,000
$69,424
$100,000
$694,245
$1,000,000
$6,942,446
Inflation by spending category, 1939–1982
Between 1939 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 798.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 352.8%, against 594.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1939
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1939 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.61%
$694
Medical care
5.24%
$898
Food
5.03%
$825
Transportation
4.55%
$678
Apparel
3.57%
$453
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1939–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1939, at end
1939–1940
0.72%
0.7%
$101
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$173
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$213
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$279
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$593
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$694
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1939
$100 from 1939 had already become $215 by
1961, on its way to $694 in 1982; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1939 had the buying
power of $694; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1939 to 1982: $100 is worth $694 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1939 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-1982/