$100 in 1940 is worth $1,751 in 2017,
because prices increased 1650.9% over that period, an average of
3.79% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,751
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1650.9%
Average inflation rate
3.79% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,751
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,651
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1940 → 2017
$1,751
$100 in 2017 → 1940
$5.71
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2017
Between 1940 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1650.9%, which works out to an average of
3.79% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2017: the 1940 dollar
lost 94.3% of its purchasing power over
these 77 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 2017 at the same ratio, 17.51: $1,000 becomes
$17,509, and $10,000 becomes $175,086.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2017
$1.00
$17.51
$5.00
$87.54
$10.00
$175
$20.00
$350
$50.00
$875
$100
$1,751
$500
$8,754
$1,000
$17,509
$5,000
$87,543
$10,000
$175,086
$100,000
$1,750,857
$1,000,000
$17,508,571
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2017
Between 1940 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 4470.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 476.2%, against 1650.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.79%
$1,751
Medical care
5.09%
$4,570
Food
4.02%
$2,084
Transportation
3.51%
$1,419
Apparel
2.30%
$576
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 2017
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$1,751
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $589 by
1980, on its way to $1,751 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,751; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2017: $100 is worth $1,751 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2017/