$100 in 1940 is worth $466 in 1978,
because prices increased 365.7% over that period, an average of
4.13% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$466
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
365.7%
Average inflation rate
4.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$466
Price difference ($100 base)
$366
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1940 → 1978
$466
$100 in 1978 → 1940
$21.47
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1978
Between 1940 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 365.7%, which works out to an average of
4.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1978: the 1940 dollar
lost 78.5% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 1978 at the same ratio, 4.66: $1,000 becomes
$4,657, and $10,000 becomes $46,571.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1978
$1.00
$4.66
$5.00
$23.29
$10.00
$46.57
$20.00
$93.14
$50.00
$233
$100
$466
$500
$2,329
$1,000
$4,657
$5,000
$23,286
$10,000
$46,571
$100,000
$465,714
$1,000,000
$4,657,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1978
Between 1940 and 1978, food rose the most, up 500.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 273.4%, against 365.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.13%
$466
Food
4.83%
$600
Medical care
4.80%
$594
Transportation
3.94%
$435
Apparel
3.53%
$373
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$466
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $206 by
1958, on its way to $466 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $466; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1978: $100 is worth $466 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1978/