$100 in 1940 is worth $886 in 1989,
because prices increased 785.7% over that period, an average of
4.55% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$886
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
785.7%
Average inflation rate
4.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$886
Price difference ($100 base)
$786
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1940 → 1989
$886
$100 in 1989 → 1940
$11.29
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1989
Between 1940 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 785.7%, which works out to an average of
4.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1989: the 1940 dollar
lost 88.7% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 1989 at the same ratio, 8.86: $1,000 becomes
$8,857, and $10,000 becomes $88,571.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1989
$1.00
$8.86
$5.00
$44.29
$10.00
$88.57
$20.00
$177
$50.00
$443
$100
$886
$500
$4,429
$1,000
$8,857
$5,000
$44,286
$10,000
$88,571
$100,000
$885,714
$1,000,000
$8,857,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1989
Between 1940 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1335.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 444.0%, against 785.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.55%
$886
Medical care
5.59%
$1,436
Food
4.90%
$1,043
Transportation
4.34%
$804
Apparel
3.52%
$544
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 1989
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 1940–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$886
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $221 by
1964, on its way to $886 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $886; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1989: $100 is worth $886 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1989/