$100 in 1940 is worth $1,395 in 2005,
because prices increased 1295.0% over that period, an average of
4.14% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,395
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1295.0%
Average inflation rate
4.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,395
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,295
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1940 → 2005
$1,395
$100 in 2005 → 1940
$7.17
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2005
Between 1940 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1295.0%, which works out to an average of
4.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2005: the 1940 dollar
lost 92.8% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 2005 at the same ratio, 13.95: $1,000 becomes
$13,950, and $10,000 becomes $139,500.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2005
$1.00
$13.95
$5.00
$69.75
$10.00
$140
$20.00
$279
$50.00
$698
$100
$1,395
$500
$6,975
$1,000
$13,950
$5,000
$69,750
$10,000
$139,500
$100,000
$1,395,000
$1,000,000
$13,950,000
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2005
Between 1940 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 3007.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 448.2%, against 1295.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.14%
$1,395
Medical care
5.43%
$3,108
Food
4.35%
$1,589
Transportation
3.93%
$1,225
Apparel
2.65%
$548
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 2005
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 1940–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$1,395
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $277 by
1970, on its way to $1,395 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,395; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2005: $100 is worth $1,395 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2005/