$100 in 1939 is worth $1,862 in 2020,
because prices increased 1761.9% over that period, an average of
3.68% a year.
$100 in 1939 has
the same buying power as
$1,862
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1761.9%
Average inflation rate
3.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,862
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,762
CPI in 1939
13.9
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1939 → 2020
$1,862
$100 in 2020 → 1939
$5.37
What happened to prices between 1939 and 2020
Between 1939 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 13.9 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1761.9%, which works out to an average of
3.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1939 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2020: the 1939 dollar
lost 94.6% of its purchasing power over
these 81 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 2020 at the same ratio, 18.62: $1,000 becomes
$18,619, and $10,000 becomes $186,195.
Amount in 1939
Value in 2020
$1.00
$18.62
$5.00
$93.10
$10.00
$186
$20.00
$372
$50.00
$931
$100
$1,862
$500
$9,310
$1,000
$18,619
$5,000
$93,097
$10,000
$186,195
$100,000
$1,861,950
$1,000,000
$18,619,496
Inflation by spending category, 1939–2020
Between 1939 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 4937.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 446.7%, against 1761.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1939
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1939 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.68%
$1,862
Medical care
4.96%
$5,038
Food
3.93%
$2,265
Transportation
3.32%
$1,408
Apparel
2.12%
$547
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1930s (0.72% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1939–2020 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$940
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,239
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,569
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,862
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1939
$100 from 1939 had already become $522 by
1979, on its way to $1,862 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1939 had the buying
power of $1,862; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1939 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,862 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1939 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1939-to-2020/