$100 in 1940 is worth $2,241 in 2024,
because prices increased 2140.6% over that period, an average of
3.77% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$2,241
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2140.6%
Average inflation rate
3.77% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,241
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,141
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1940 → 2024
$2,241
$100 in 2024 → 1940
$4.46
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2024
Between 1940 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2140.6%, which works out to an average of
3.77% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2024: the 1940 dollar
lost 95.5% of its purchasing power over
these 84 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 2024 at the same ratio, 22.41: $1,000 becomes
$22,406, and $10,000 becomes $224,064.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2024
$1.00
$22.41
$5.00
$112
$10.00
$224
$20.00
$448
$50.00
$1,120
$100
$2,241
$500
$11,203
$1,000
$22,406
$5,000
$112,032
$10,000
$224,064
$100,000
$2,240,636
$1,000,000
$22,406,357
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2024
Between 1940 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 5321.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 503.1%, against 2140.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.77%
$2,241
Medical care
4.87%
$5,422
Food
4.03%
$2,752
Transportation
3.57%
$1,906
Apparel
2.16%
$603
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 2024
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 1940–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$2,241
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $589 by
1980, on its way to $2,241 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $2,241; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2024: $100 is worth $2,241 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2024/