$100 in 1940 is worth $1,693 in 2015,
because prices increased 1593.0% over that period, an average of
3.84% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,693
in 2015
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1593.0%
Average inflation rate
3.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,693
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,593
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2015
237.017
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2015
0.12%
$100 in 1940 → 2015
$1,693
$100 in 2015 → 1940
$5.91
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2015
Between 1940 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1593.0%, which works out to an average of
3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2015: the 1940 dollar
lost 94.1% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2015 at the same ratio, 16.93: $1,000 becomes
$16,930, and $10,000 becomes $169,298.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2015
$1.00
$16.93
$5.00
$84.65
$10.00
$169
$20.00
$339
$50.00
$846
$100
$1,693
$500
$8,465
$1,000
$16,930
$5,000
$84,649
$10,000
$169,298
$100,000
$1,692,979
$1,000,000
$16,929,786
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2015
Between 1940 and 2015, medical care rose the most, up 4195.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 477.5%, against 1593.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.84%
$1,693
Medical care
5.14%
$4,296
Food
4.12%
$2,060
Transportation
3.58%
$1,402
Apparel
2.37%
$578
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 2015
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.68% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–2015 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
2010–2015
1.68%
8.7%
$1,693
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $384 by
1975, on its way to $1,693 in 2015; 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: 2015
In 2015, prices rose 0.1% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,693; the year's average CPI of 237.017 is the level
behind every 2015 figure on this page.
2015 was almost a year with no inflation at all. Consumer prices rose 0.1%,
the smallest increase since the 2009 decline, because energy prices kept
falling. Gasoline averaged $2.45 a gallon, down from $3.37 in 2014, and a
strong dollar made imported goods cheaper. The picture was different outside
food and energy: core prices rose about 1.8% as rents and medical costs
climbed.
Incomes finally showed real progress. Median household income reached $56,516,
a large jump from $53,657, and the median new home sold for about $296,400. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp stayed at 49
cents.
The Federal Reserve chose December to end its zero-rate policy, raising the
target range to 0.25–0.50% for the first time since 2006. It moved even
though headline inflation was far under 2%, arguing that the drag from
energy was temporary. Earlier, a currency shift in China in August had shaken
global markets and pushed oil below $40 a barrel. Prices in 2015 ended
the year barely above their 2014 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2015: $100 is worth $1,693 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2015/