$100 in 1940 is worth $742 in 1984,
because prices increased 642.1% over that period, an average of
4.66% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$742
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
642.1%
Average inflation rate
4.66% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$742
Price difference ($100 base)
$642
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1940 → 1984
$742
$100 in 1984 → 1940
$13.47
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1984
Between 1940 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 642.1%, which works out to an average of
4.66% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1984: the 1940 dollar
lost 86.5% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 1984 at the same ratio, 7.42: $1,000 becomes
$7,421, and $10,000 becomes $74,214.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1984
$1.00
$7.42
$5.00
$37.11
$10.00
$74.21
$20.00
$148
$50.00
$371
$100
$742
$500
$3,711
$1,000
$7,421
$5,000
$37,107
$10,000
$74,214
$100,000
$742,143
$1,000,000
$7,421,429
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1984
Between 1940 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 926.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 368.3%, against 642.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.66%
$742
Medical care
5.44%
$1,027
Food
5.01%
$860
Transportation
4.62%
$730
Apparel
3.57%
$468
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 1984
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 1940–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$742
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $216 by
1962, on its way to $742 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $742; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1984: $100 is worth $742 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1984/