$100 in 1940 is worth $1,532 in 2009,
because prices increased 1432.4% over that period, an average of
4.03% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,532
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1432.4%
Average inflation rate
4.03% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,532
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,432
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1940 → 2009
$1,532
$100 in 2009 → 1940
$6.53
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2009
Between 1940 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1432.4%, which works out to an average of
4.03% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2009: the 1940 dollar
lost 93.5% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 2009 at the same ratio, 15.32: $1,000 becomes
$15,324, and $10,000 becomes $153,241.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2009
$1.00
$15.32
$5.00
$76.62
$10.00
$153
$20.00
$306
$50.00
$766
$100
$1,532
$500
$7,662
$1,000
$15,324
$5,000
$76,620
$10,000
$153,241
$100,000
$1,532,407
$1,000,000
$15,324,071
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2009
Between 1940 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 3511.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 450.8%, against 1432.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.03%
$1,532
Medical care
5.34%
$3,612
Food
4.29%
$1,816
Transportation
3.74%
$1,262
Apparel
2.50%
$551
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 2009
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 1940–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,532
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $384 by
1975, on its way to $1,532 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,532; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,532 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2009/