$100 in 1940 is worth $2,300 in 2025,
because prices increased 2199.6% over that period, an average of
3.76% a year.
$100 in 1940 has
the same buying power as
$2,300
in 2025
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2199.6%
Average inflation rate
3.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,300
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,200
CPI in 1940
14
CPI in 2025
321.943
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
Inflation in 2025
2.63%
$100 in 1940 → 2025
$2,300
$100 in 2025 → 1940
$4.35
What happened to prices between 1940 and 2025
Between 1940 and 2025, the Consumer Price Index went from 14 to 321.943.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2199.6%, which works out to an average of
3.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1940 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2025: the 1940 dollar
lost 95.7% of its purchasing power over
these 85 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 2025 at the same ratio, 23.00: $1,000 becomes
$22,996, and $10,000 becomes $229,959.
Amount in 1940
Value in 2025
$1.00
$23.00
$5.00
$115
$10.00
$230
$20.00
$460
$50.00
$1,150
$100
$2,300
$500
$11,498
$1,000
$22,996
$5,000
$114,980
$10,000
$229,959
$100,000
$2,299,593
$1,000,000
$22,995,929
Inflation by spending category, 1940–2025
Between 1940 and 2025, medical care rose the most, up 5477.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 502.3%, against 2199.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1940
spending costs in 2025, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1940 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.76%
$2,300
Medical care
4.84%
$5,578
Food
4.01%
$2,829
Transportation
3.54%
$1,916
Apparel
2.14%
$602
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 2025
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 1940–2025 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
2020–2025
4.46%
24.4%
$2,300
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1940
$100 from 1940 had already become $589 by
1980, on its way to $2,300 in 2025; 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: 2025
In 2025, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1940 had the buying
power of $2,300; the year's average CPI of 321.943 is the level
behind every 2025 figure on this page.
2025 was a year of trade policy and data disruptions rather than an
inflation surge. Consumer prices rose 2.6% on average, a step down from
2024’s 2.9% and well below the 8.0% of 2022. Tariffs announced in April
pushed up prices for some imported goods, including furniture, apparel, and
auto parts, but the effect on the overall index was smaller than many
forecasters feared at the start of the year, in part because retailers
absorbed some of the cost and demand for services stayed steady.
The Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady through the first half of the
year, then began cutting again in September, lowering it in three quarter-point
steps to 3.50–3.75% by December.
The federal government shutdown that began October 1 lasted 43 days, and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish a CPI for October 2025 because the
survey data could not be collected. The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 78 cents in July.
MLA: “Inflation from 1940 to 2025: $100 is worth $2,300 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2025/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1940 to 2025. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1940-to-2025/