$100 in 1940 is worth $139 in 1946,
because prices increased 39.3% over that period, an average of
5.68% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$139
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
39.3%
Average inflation rate
5.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$139
Price difference ($100 base)
$39.29
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1940 → 1946
$139
$100 in 1946 → 1940
$71.79
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1946
Between 1940 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 39.3%, which works out to an average of
5.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1946: the 1940 dollar
lost 28.2% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.39: $1,000 becomes
$1,393, and $10,000 becomes $13,929.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.39
$5.00
$6.96
$10.00
$13.93
$20.00
$27.86
$50.00
$69.64
$100
$139
$500
$696
$1,000
$1,393
$5,000
$6,964
$10,000
$13,929
$100,000
$139,286
$1,000,000
$1,392,857
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1946
Between 1940 and 1946, food rose the most, up 65.0%, while transportation rose the least, up 17.6%, against 39.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.68%
$139
Food
8.70%
$165
Apparel
7.90%
$158
Medical care
3.11%
$120
Transportation
2.74%
$118
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 $124 by
1943, on its way to $139 in 1946; 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 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $139; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1946: $100 is worth $139 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1946/