$100 in 1941 is worth $1,459 in 2009,
because prices increased 1359.4% over that period, an average of
4.02% a year.
$100 in 1941 has
the same buying power as
$1,459
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1359.4%
Average inflation rate
4.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,459
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,359
CPI in 1941
14.7
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1941 → 2009
$1,459
$100 in 2009 → 1941
$6.85
What happened to prices between 1941 and 2009
Between 1941 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 14.7 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1359.4%, which works out to an average of
4.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1941 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2009: the 1941 dollar
lost 93.1% of its purchasing power over
these 68 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 2009 at the same ratio, 14.59: $1,000 becomes
$14,594, and $10,000 becomes $145,944.
Amount in 1941
Value in 2009
$1.00
$14.59
$5.00
$72.97
$10.00
$146
$20.00
$292
$50.00
$730
$100
$1,459
$500
$7,297
$1,000
$14,594
$5,000
$72,972
$10,000
$145,944
$100,000
$1,459,435
$1,000,000
$14,594,354
Inflation by spending category, 1941–2009
Between 1941 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 3511.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 426.7%, against 1359.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1941
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1941 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.02%
$1,459
Medical care
5.42%
$3,612
Food
4.22%
$1,664
Transportation
3.75%
$1,219
Apparel
2.47%
$527
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 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1941–2009 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$889
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,171
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,459
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1941
$100 from 1941 had already become $387 by
1976, on its way to $1,459 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1941 had the buying
power of $1,459; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1941 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,459 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1941 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1941-to-2009/