$100 in 1940 is worth $129 in 1945,
because prices increased 28.6% over that period, an average of
5.15% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$129
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
28.6%
Average inflation rate
5.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$129
Price difference ($100 base)
$28.57
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1940 → 1945
$129
$100 in 1945 → 1940
$77.78
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1945
Between 1940 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 28.6%, which works out to an average of
5.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1945: the 1940 dollar
lost 22.2% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.29: $1,000 becomes
$1,286, and $10,000 becomes $12,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.29
$5.00
$6.43
$10.00
$12.86
$20.00
$25.71
$50.00
$64.29
$100
$129
$500
$643
$1,000
$1,286
$5,000
$6,429
$10,000
$12,857
$100,000
$128,571
$1,000,000
$1,285,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1945
Between 1940 and 1945, food rose the most, up 44.2%, while transportation rose the least, up 12.0%, against 28.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.15%
$129
Food
7.59%
$144
Apparel
7.57%
$144
Medical care
2.73%
$114
Transportation
2.29%
$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 $129 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $129; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1945: $100 is worth $129 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1945/