$100 in 1940 is worth $1,936 in 2021,
because prices increased 1835.5% over that period, an average of
3.73% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$1,936
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1835.5%
Average inflation rate
3.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,936
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,836
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1940 → 2021
$1,936
$100 in 2021 → 1940
$5.17
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2021
Between 1940 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1835.5%, which works out to an average of
3.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2021: the 1940 dollar
lost 94.8% of its purchasing power over
these 81 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 2021 at the same ratio, 19.36: $1,000 becomes
$19,355, and $10,000 becomes $193,550.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2021
$1.00
$19.36
$5.00
$96.78
$10.00
$194
$20.00
$387
$50.00
$968
$100
$1,936
$500
$9,678
$1,000
$19,355
$5,000
$96,775
$10,000
$193,550
$100,000
$1,935,500
$1,000,000
$19,355,000
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2021
Between 1940 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 4950.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 455.0%, against 1835.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.73%
$1,936
Medical care
4.96%
$5,051
Food
3.96%
$2,315
Transportation
3.50%
$1,624
Apparel
2.14%
$555
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 2021
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1940–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,849
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,936
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $589 by
1980, on its way to $1,936 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $1,936; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,936 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2021/