$100 in 1940 is worth $1,121 in 1996,
because prices increased 1020.7% over that period, an average of
4.41% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,121
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1020.7%
Average inflation rate
4.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,121
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,021
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1940 → 1996
$1,121
$100 in 1996 → 1940
$8.92
What happened to prices between 1940 and 1996
Between 1940 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1020.7%, which works out to an average of
4.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1996: the 1940 dollar
lost 91.1% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1996 at the same ratio, 11.21: $1,000 becomes
$11,207, and $10,000 becomes $112,071.
Amount in 1940
Value in 1996
$1.00
$11.21
$5.00
$56.04
$10.00
$112
$20.00
$224
$50.00
$560
$100
$1,121
$500
$5,604
$1,000
$11,207
$5,000
$56,036
$10,000
$112,071
$100,000
$1,120,714
$1,000,000
$11,207,143
Inflation by spending category, 1940–1996
Between 1940 and 1996, medical care rose the most, up 2094.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 504.1%, against 1020.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.41%
$1,121
Medical care
5.67%
$2,194
Food
4.65%
$1,278
Transportation
4.21%
$1,007
Apparel
3.26%
$604
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 1996
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 1940–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$1,121
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $249 by
1968, on its way to $1,121 in 1996; 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: 1996
In 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,121; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 1996: $100 is worth $1,121 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-1996/