$100 in 1941 is worth $120 in 1944,
because prices increased 19.7% over that period, an average of
6.19% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$120
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
19.7%
Average inflation rate
6.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$120
Price difference ($100 base)
$19.73
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1941 → 1944
$120
$100 in 1944 → 1941
$83.52
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1944
Between 1941 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 19.7%, which works out to an average of
6.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1944: the 1941 dollar
lost 16.5% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1941 amount converts to 1944 at the same ratio, 1.20: $1,000 becomes
$1,197, and $10,000 becomes $11,973.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.20
$5.00
$5.99
$10.00
$11.97
$20.00
$23.95
$50.00
$59.86
$100
$120
$500
$599
$1,000
$1,197
$5,000
$5,986
$10,000
$11,973
$100,000
$119,728
$1,000,000
$1,197,279
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1944
Between 1941 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 30.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 8.2%, against 19.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.19%
$120
Apparel
9.34%
$131
Food
8.86%
$129
Medical care
3.71%
$112
Transportation
2.65%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1941: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $111 by
1942, on its way to $120 in 1944; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and the smallest rise was 1.7% in 1944.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $120; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1941 to 1944: $100 is worth $120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1944/