$100 in 1940 is worth $769 in 1985,
because prices increased 668.6% over that period, an average of
4.64% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$769
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
668.6%
Average inflation rate
4.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$769
Price difference ($100 base)
$669
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1940 → 1985
$769
$100 in 1985 → 1940
$13.01
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1985
Between 1940 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 668.6%, which works out to an average of
4.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1985: the 1940 dollar
lost 87.0% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1985 at the same ratio, 7.69: $1,000 becomes
$7,686, and $10,000 becomes $76,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1985
$1.00
$7.69
$5.00
$38.43
$10.00
$76.86
$20.00
$154
$50.00
$384
$100
$769
$500
$3,843
$1,000
$7,686
$5,000
$38,429
$10,000
$76,857
$100,000
$768,571
$1,000,000
$7,685,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1985
Between 1940 and 1985, medical care rose the most, up 991.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 381.7%, against 668.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.64%
$769
Medical care
5.45%
$1,091
Food
4.95%
$880
Transportation
4.58%
$749
Apparel
3.56%
$482
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 1985
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 1940–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$769
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $216 by
1962, on its way to $769 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $769; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1985: $100 is worth $769 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1985/