$100 in 1940 is worth $519 in 1979,
because prices increased 418.6% over that period, an average of
4.31% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$519
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
418.6%
Average inflation rate
4.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$519
Price difference ($100 base)
$419
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1940 → 1979
$519
$100 in 1979 → 1940
$19.28
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1979
Between 1940 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 418.6%, which works out to an average of
4.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.19 buys in 1979: the 1940 dollar
lost 80.7% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1979 at the same ratio, 5.19: $1,000 becomes
$5,186, and $10,000 becomes $51,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1979
$1.00
$5.19
$5.00
$25.93
$10.00
$51.86
$20.00
$104
$50.00
$259
$100
$519
$500
$2,593
$1,000
$5,186
$5,000
$25,929
$10,000
$51,857
$100,000
$518,571
$1,000,000
$5,185,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1979
Between 1940 and 1979, food rose the most, up 565.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 289.4%, against 418.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.31%
$519
Food
4.98%
$666
Medical care
4.91%
$649
Transportation
4.19%
$496
Apparel
3.55%
$389
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$519
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $211 by
1960, on its way to $519 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $519; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1979: $100 is worth $519 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1979/