$100 in 1940 is worth $289 in 1971,
because prices increased 189.3% over that period, an average of
3.49% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$289
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
189.3%
Average inflation rate
3.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$289
Price difference ($100 base)
$189
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1940 → 1971
$289
$100 in 1971 → 1940
$34.57
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1971
Between 1940 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 189.3%, which works out to an average of
3.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.35 buys in 1971: the 1940 dollar
lost 65.4% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1971 at the same ratio, 2.89: $1,000 becomes
$2,893, and $10,000 becomes $28,929.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1971
$1.00
$2.89
$5.00
$14.46
$10.00
$28.93
$20.00
$57.86
$50.00
$145
$100
$289
$500
$1,446
$1,000
$2,893
$5,000
$14,464
$10,000
$28,929
$100,000
$289,286
$1,000,000
$2,892,857
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1971
Between 1940 and 1971, medical care rose the most, up 247.1%, while transportation rose the least, up 178.2%, against 189.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.49%
$289
Medical care
4.10%
$347
Food
3.99%
$337
Apparel
3.38%
$280
Transportation
3.36%
$278
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 1971
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 1940–1971 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$277
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$289
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $194 by
1956, on its way to $289 in 1971; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1971
In 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $289; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1971: $100 is worth $289 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1971/