$100 in 1940 is worth $1,059 in 1994,
because prices increased 958.6% over that period, an average of
4.47% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,059
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
958.6%
Average inflation rate
4.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,059
Price difference ($100 base)
$959
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1940 → 1994
$1,059
$100 in 1994 → 1940
$9.45
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1994
Between 1940 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 958.6%, which works out to an average of
4.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1994: the 1940 dollar
lost 90.6% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 1994 at the same ratio, 10.59: $1,000 becomes
$10,586, and $10,000 becomes $105,857.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1994
$1.00
$10.59
$5.00
$52.93
$10.00
$106
$20.00
$212
$50.00
$529
$100
$1,059
$500
$5,293
$1,000
$10,586
$5,000
$52,929
$10,000
$105,857
$100,000
$1,058,571
$1,000,000
$10,585,714
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1994
Between 1940 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1928.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 511.9%, against 958.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.47%
$1,059
Medical care
5.73%
$2,029
Food
4.71%
$1,203
Transportation
4.25%
$946
Apparel
3.41%
$612
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 1994
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 1940–1994 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$934
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$1,059
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $231 by
1966, on its way to $1,059 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,059; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1994: $100 is worth $1,059 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1994/