$100 in 1941 is worth $122 in 1945,
because prices increased 22.4% over that period, an average of
5.19% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$122
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
22.4%
Average inflation rate
5.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$122
Price difference ($100 base)
$22.45
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1941 → 1945
$122
$100 in 1945 → 1941
$81.67
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1945
Between 1941 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 22.4%, which works out to an average of
5.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.82 buys in 1945: the 1941 dollar
lost 18.3% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.22: $1,000 becomes
$1,224, and $10,000 becomes $12,245.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.22
$5.00
$6.12
$10.00
$12.24
$20.00
$24.49
$50.00
$61.22
$100
$122
$500
$612
$1,000
$1,224
$5,000
$6,122
$10,000
$12,245
$100,000
$122,449
$1,000,000
$1,224,490
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1945
Between 1941 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 37.7%, while transportation rose the least, up 8.2%, against 22.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.19%
$122
Apparel
8.33%
$138
Food
7.20%
$132
Medical care
3.43%
$114
Transportation
1.98%
$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 $118 by
1943, on its way to $122 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $122; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1941 to 1945: $100 is worth $122 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1945/