$100 in 1940 is worth $589 in 1980,
because prices increased 488.6% over that period, an average of
4.53% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$589
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
488.6%
Average inflation rate
4.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$589
Price difference ($100 base)
$489
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1940 → 1980
$589
$100 in 1980 → 1940
$16.99
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1980
Between 1940 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 488.6%, which works out to an average of
4.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1980: the 1940 dollar
lost 83.0% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1980 at the same ratio, 5.89: $1,000 becomes
$5,886, and $10,000 becomes $58,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1980
$1.00
$5.89
$5.00
$29.43
$10.00
$58.86
$20.00
$118
$50.00
$294
$100
$589
$500
$2,943
$1,000
$5,886
$5,000
$29,429
$10,000
$58,857
$100,000
$588,571
$1,000,000
$5,885,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1980
Between 1940 and 1980, food rose the most, up 623.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 317.0%, against 488.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.53%
$589
Food
5.07%
$723
Medical care
5.06%
$720
Transportation
4.52%
$585
Apparel
3.63%
$417
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$589
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $211 by
1960, on its way to $589 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $589; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1980: $100 is worth $589 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1980/