$100 in 1940 is worth $191 in 1953,
because prices increased 90.7% over that period, an average of
5.09% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$191
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
90.7%
Average inflation rate
5.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$191
Price difference ($100 base)
$90.71
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1940 → 1953
$191
$100 in 1953 → 1940
$52.43
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1953
Between 1940 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 90.7%, which works out to an average of
5.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1953: the 1940 dollar
lost 47.6% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.91: $1,000 becomes
$1,907, and $10,000 becomes $19,071.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.91
$5.00
$9.54
$10.00
$19.07
$20.00
$38.14
$50.00
$95.36
$100
$191
$500
$954
$1,000
$1,907
$5,000
$9,536
$10,000
$19,071
$100,000
$190,714
$1,000,000
$1,907,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1953
Between 1940 and 1953, food rose the most, up 135.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 66.3%, against 90.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.09%
$191
Food
6.82%
$236
Apparel
5.38%
$198
Transportation
4.92%
$187
Medical care
3.99%
$166
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–).
Decade by decade: 1940 to 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (3.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1953 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1940, at end
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$172
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$191
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $139 by
1946, on its way to $191 in 1953; 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.
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $191; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1953: $100 is worth $191 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1953/