$100 in 1940 is worth $208 in 1959,
because prices increased 107.9% over that period, an average of
3.93% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$208
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
107.9%
Average inflation rate
3.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$208
Price difference ($100 base)
$108
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1940 → 1959
$208
$100 in 1959 → 1940
$48.11
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1959
Between 1940 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 107.9%, which works out to an average of
3.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1959: the 1940 dollar
lost 51.9% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1959 at the same ratio, 2.08: $1,000 becomes
$2,079, and $10,000 becomes $20,786.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1959
$1.00
$2.08
$5.00
$10.39
$10.00
$20.79
$20.00
$41.57
$50.00
$104
$100
$208
$500
$1,039
$1,000
$2,079
$5,000
$10,393
$10,000
$20,786
$100,000
$207,857
$1,000,000
$2,078,571
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1959
Between 1940 and 1959, food rose the most, up 147.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 106.4%, against 107.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.93%
$208
Food
4.89%
$248
Transportation
3.98%
$210
Medical care
3.90%
$207
Apparel
3.89%
$206
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 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1940, at end
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$172
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$208
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $170 by
1949, on its way to $208 in 1959; 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 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $208; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1959: $100 is worth $208 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1959/