$100 in 1940 is worth $126 in 1944,
because prices increased 25.7% over that period, an average of
5.89% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$126
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
25.7%
Average inflation rate
5.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$126
Price difference ($100 base)
$25.71
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1940 → 1944
$126
$100 in 1944 → 1940
$79.55
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1944
Between 1940 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 25.7%, which works out to an average of
5.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.80 buys in 1944: the 1940 dollar
lost 20.5% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.26: $1,000 becomes
$1,257, and $10,000 becomes $12,571.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.26
$5.00
$6.29
$10.00
$12.57
$20.00
$25.14
$50.00
$62.86
$100
$126
$500
$629
$1,000
$1,257
$5,000
$6,286
$10,000
$12,571
$100,000
$125,714
$1,000,000
$1,257,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1944
Between 1940 and 1944, food rose the most, up 40.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 11.5%, against 25.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.89%
$126
Food
8.94%
$141
Apparel
8.13%
$137
Transportation
2.87%
$112
Medical care
2.77%
$112
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 $116 by
1942, on its way to $126 in 1944; 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 1.7% in 1944.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $126; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1944: $100 is worth $126 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1944/