$100 in 1940 is worth $194 in 1956,
because prices increased 94.3% over that period, an average of
4.24% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$194
in 1956
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
94.3%
Average inflation rate
4.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$194
Price difference ($100 base)
$94.29
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1956
27.2
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1956
1.49%
$100 in 1940 → 1956
$194
$100 in 1956 → 1940
$51.47
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1956
Between 1940 and 1956, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 27.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 94.3%, which works out to an average of
4.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1956: the 1940 dollar
lost 48.5% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1956 at the same ratio, 1.94: $1,000 becomes
$1,943, and $10,000 becomes $19,429.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1956
$1.00
$1.94
$5.00
$9.71
$10.00
$19.43
$20.00
$38.86
$50.00
$97.14
$100
$194
$500
$971
$1,000
$1,943
$5,000
$9,714
$10,000
$19,429
$100,000
$194,286
$1,000,000
$1,942,857
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1956
Between 1940 and 1956, food rose the most, up 133.3%, while medical care rose the least, up 81.7%, against 94.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1956, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.24%
$194
Food
5.44%
$233
Apparel
4.44%
$200
Transportation
3.90%
$185
Medical care
3.80%
$182
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 1956
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.04% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1956 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1940, at end
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$172
1950–1956
2.04%
12.9%
$194
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $172 by
1948, on its way to $194 in 1956; 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 1956, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $194; the year's average CPI of 27.2 is the level
behind every 1956 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1956, a return to mild inflation after they had
fallen 0.4% in 1955, the only annual decline of the decade. The two years sat
in the calmest stretch of the postwar index, a lull between the Korean War
price surge earlier in the 1950s and the acceleration that would return in
the 1970s. Congress had already raised the wage floor into that calm: the
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, signed the previous August, took
effect March 1 and lifted the federal minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an
hour, the first increase since 1950. Eisenhower signed a longer-lasting
commitment on June 29, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, funding 41,000 miles of
controlled-access highway at 90% federal cost to build the Interstate
System, the largest public-works program the country had undertaken. He won
a second term that November, carrying 41 states and about 57% of the
popular vote in a rematch against Adlai Stevenson. Abroad, the Suez Crisis
broke the calm on the supply side: Egypt nationalized the canal on July 26,
and after Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29 with British and French
forces following, the canal’s closure and damaged pipelines squeezed oil
shipments to Western Europe for months. Consumer prices stood 174.7% above
their 1913 level by 1956, up 94% since 1940
alone, even after a decade that had barely moved the index. First-class
postage held at 3 cents, unchanged since 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1956: $100 is worth $194 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1956/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1956. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1956/