$100 in 1940 is worth $1,314 in 2003,
because prices increased 1214.3% over that period, an average of
4.17% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,314
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1214.3%
Average inflation rate
4.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,314
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,214
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1940 → 2003
$1,314
$100 in 2003 → 1940
$7.61
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2003
Between 1940 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1214.3%, which works out to an average of
4.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2003: the 1940 dollar
lost 92.4% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2003 at the same ratio, 13.14: $1,000 becomes
$13,143, and $10,000 becomes $131,429.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2003
$1.00
$13.14
$5.00
$65.71
$10.00
$131
$20.00
$263
$50.00
$657
$100
$1,314
$500
$6,571
$1,000
$13,143
$5,000
$65,714
$10,000
$131,429
$100,000
$1,314,286
$1,000,000
$13,142,857
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2003
Between 1940 and 2003, medical care rose the most, up 2756.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 454.6%, against 1214.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.17%
$1,314
Medical care
5.47%
$2,857
Food
4.39%
$1,500
Transportation
3.89%
$1,110
Apparel
2.76%
$555
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 2003
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 1940–2003 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,230
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,314
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $277 by
1970, on its way to $1,314 in 2003; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,314; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,314 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2003/