$100 in 1940 is worth $1,640 in 2012,
because prices increased 1540.0% over that period, an average of
3.96% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,640
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1540.0%
Average inflation rate
3.96% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,640
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,540
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1940 → 2012
$1,640
$100 in 2012 → 1940
$6.10
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2012
Between 1940 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1540.0%, which works out to an average of
3.96% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2012: the 1940 dollar
lost 93.9% of its purchasing power over
these 72 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 2012 at the same ratio, 16.40: $1,000 becomes
$16,400, and $10,000 becomes $163,996.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2012
$1.00
$16.40
$5.00
$82.00
$10.00
$164
$20.00
$328
$50.00
$820
$100
$1,640
$500
$8,200
$1,000
$16,400
$5,000
$81,998
$10,000
$163,996
$100,000
$1,639,957
$1,000,000
$16,399,571
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2012
Between 1940 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 3889.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 479.2%, against 1540.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.96%
$1,640
Medical care
5.25%
$3,990
Food
4.21%
$1,948
Transportation
3.86%
$1,531
Apparel
2.47%
$579
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 2012
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 1940–2012 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,558
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$1,640
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $384 by
1975, on its way to $1,640 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,640; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2012: $100 is worth $1,640 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2012/