$100 in 1940 is worth $225 in 1965,
because prices increased 125.0% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$225
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
125.0%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$225
Price difference ($100 base)
$125
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1940 → 1965
$225
$100 in 1965 → 1940
$44.44
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1965
Between 1940 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 125.0%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1965: the 1940 dollar
lost 55.6% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1965 at the same ratio, 2.25: $1,000 becomes
$2,250, and $10,000 becomes $22,500.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1965
$1.00
$2.25
$5.00
$11.25
$10.00
$22.50
$20.00
$45.00
$50.00
$113
$100
$225
$500
$1,125
$1,000
$2,250
$5,000
$11,250
$10,000
$22,500
$100,000
$225,000
$1,000,000
$2,250,000
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1965
Between 1940 and 1965, food rose the most, up 168.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 119.3%, against 125.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$225
Food
4.03%
$268
Medical care
3.60%
$242
Transportation
3.29%
$225
Apparel
3.19%
$219
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$225
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $189 by
1952, on its way to $225 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $225; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1965: $100 is worth $225 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1965/