$100 in 1940 is worth $317 in 1973,
because prices increased 217.1% over that period, an average of
3.56% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$317
in 1973
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
217.1%
Average inflation rate
3.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$317
Price difference ($100 base)
$217
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1973
44.4
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
$100 in 1940 → 1973
$317
$100 in 1973 → 1940
$31.53
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1973
Between 1940 and 1973, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 44.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 217.1%, which works out to an average of
3.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.32 buys in 1973: the 1940 dollar
lost 68.5% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1973 at the same ratio, 3.17: $1,000 becomes
$3,171, and $10,000 becomes $31,714.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1973
$1.00
$3.17
$5.00
$15.86
$10.00
$31.71
$20.00
$63.43
$50.00
$159
$100
$317
$500
$1,586
$1,000
$3,171
$5,000
$15,857
$10,000
$31,714
$100,000
$317,143
$1,000,000
$3,171,429
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1973
Between 1940 and 1973, food rose the most, up 301.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 190.1%, against 217.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1973, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.56%
$317
Food
4.30%
$402
Medical care
4.07%
$373
Apparel
3.35%
$296
Transportation
3.28%
$290
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 1973
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 1940–1973 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
1970–1973
4.60%
14.4%
$317
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $194 by
1956, on its way to $317 in 1973; 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: 1973
In 1973, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $317; the year's average CPI of 44.4 is the level
behind every 1973 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1973: $100 is worth $317 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1973/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1973. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1973/