$100 in 1941 is worth $656 in 1982,
because prices increased 556.5% over that period, an average of
4.70% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$656
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
556.5%
Average inflation rate
4.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$656
Price difference ($100 base)
$556
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1941 → 1982
$656
$100 in 1982 → 1941
$15.23
What happened to prices between 1941 and 1982
Between 1941 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 556.5%, which works out to an average of
4.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1982: the 1941 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 1982 at the same ratio, 6.56: $1,000 becomes
$6,565, and $10,000 becomes $65,646.
Amount in 1941
Value in 1982
$1.00
$6.56
$5.00
$32.82
$10.00
$65.65
$20.00
$131
$50.00
$328
$100
$656
$500
$3,282
$1,000
$6,565
$5,000
$32,823
$10,000
$65,646
$100,000
$656,463
$1,000,000
$6,564,626
Inflation by spending category, 1941–1982
Between 1941 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 789.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 328.9%, against 556.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.70%
$656
Medical care
5.47%
$889
Food
5.01%
$744
Transportation
4.71%
$660
Apparel
3.62%
$429
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–).
Decade by decade: 1941 to 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1941–1982 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1941, at end
1941–1950
5.65%
63.9%
$164
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$201
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$264
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$561
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$656
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $203 by
1961, on its way to $656 in 1982; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $656; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1941 to 1982: $100 is worth $656 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-1982/