$100 in 1940 is worth $124 in 1943,
because prices increased 23.6% over that period, an average of
7.31% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$124
in 1943
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
23.6%
Average inflation rate
7.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$124
Price difference ($100 base)
$23.57
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1943
17.3
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
$100 in 1940 → 1943
$124
$100 in 1943 → 1940
$80.92
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1943
Between 1940 and 1943, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 17.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 23.6%, which works out to an average of
7.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1943: the 1940 dollar
lost 19.1% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1940, snapping 1939’s decline
and marking the first increase since 1937. The gain was modest, and the CPI
still stood 18.1% below its 1929 peak, a reminder of how far
the recovery from the Depression’s trough had left to go even as defense
orders from Britain and France began reaching American factories. War was
already reshaping domestic policy well before it touched American soil.
Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act that September, the
country’s first peacetime draft, requiring men aged 21 to 35 to register and
authorizing the induction of up to 900,000 men a year, more than a year
before Pearl Harbor. That November, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented
third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie after campaigning on
keeping the United States out of the war then consuming Europe and Asia. The
promise would not hold much longer: within two years, wartime demand would
push consumer prices up faster than at any point since the aftermath of
World War I. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the federal minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour, the level set the previous October under
the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Every 1940 amount converts to 1943 at the same ratio, 1.24: $1,000 becomes
$1,236, and $10,000 becomes $12,357.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1943
$1.00
$1.24
$5.00
$6.18
$10.00
$12.36
$20.00
$24.71
$50.00
$61.79
$100
$124
$500
$618
$1,000
$1,236
$5,000
$6,179
$10,000
$12,357
$100,000
$123,571
$1,000,000
$1,235,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1943
Between 1940 and 1943, food rose the most, up 42.5%, while medical care rose the least, up 7.7%, against 23.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1943, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.31%
$124
Food
12.53%
$143
Apparel
8.44%
$128
Transportation
3.84%
$112
Medical care
2.50%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1940: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $105 by
1941, on its way to $124 in 1943; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and the smallest rise was 5.0% in 1941.
In 1943, prices rose 6.1% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $124; the year's average CPI of 17.3 is the level
behind every 1943 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1943: $100 is worth $124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1943/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1943. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1943/