$100 in 1940 is worth $262 in 1969,
because prices increased 162.1% over that period, an average of
3.38% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$262
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
162.1%
Average inflation rate
3.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$262
Price difference ($100 base)
$162
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1940 → 1969
$262
$100 in 1969 → 1940
$38.15
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1969
Between 1940 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 162.1%, which works out to an average of
3.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.38 buys in 1969: the 1940 dollar
lost 61.9% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.62: $1,000 becomes
$2,621, and $10,000 becomes $26,214.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.62
$5.00
$13.11
$10.00
$26.21
$20.00
$52.43
$50.00
$131
$100
$262
$500
$1,311
$1,000
$2,621
$5,000
$13,107
$10,000
$26,214
$100,000
$262,143
$1,000,000
$2,621,429
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1969
Between 1940 and 1969, food rose the most, up 209.2%, while transportation rose the least, up 151.4%, against 162.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.38%
$262
Food
3.97%
$309
Medical care
3.94%
$307
Apparel
3.36%
$261
Transportation
3.23%
$251
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 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1969 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
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$262
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $192 by
1954, on its way to $262 in 1969; 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 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $262; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1969: $100 is worth $262 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1969/