$100 in 1940 is worth $219 in 1963,
because prices increased 118.6% over that period, an average of
3.46% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$219
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
118.6%
Average inflation rate
3.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$219
Price difference ($100 base)
$119
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1940 → 1963
$219
$100 in 1963 → 1940
$45.75
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1963
Between 1940 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 118.6%, which works out to an average of
3.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.46 buys in 1963: the 1940 dollar
lost 54.2% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1963 at the same ratio, 2.19: $1,000 becomes
$2,186, and $10,000 becomes $21,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1963
$1.00
$2.19
$5.00
$10.93
$10.00
$21.86
$20.00
$43.71
$50.00
$109
$100
$219
$500
$1,093
$1,000
$2,186
$5,000
$10,929
$10,000
$21,857
$100,000
$218,571
$1,000,000
$2,185,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1963
Between 1940 and 1963, food rose the most, up 159.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 115.1%, against 118.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.46%
$219
Food
4.23%
$259
Medical care
3.72%
$232
Transportation
3.44%
$218
Apparel
3.39%
$215
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1940, at end
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$172
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$211
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$219
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $186 by
1951, on its way to $219 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $219; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1963: $100 is worth $219 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1963/