$100 in 1942 is worth $146 in 1949,
because prices increased 46.0% over that period, an average of
5.56% a year.
$100 in 1942 has
the same buying power as
$146
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
46.0%
Average inflation rate
5.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$146
Price difference ($100 base)
$46.01
CPI in 1942
16.3
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1942
10.88%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1942 → 1949
$146
$100 in 1949 → 1942
$68.49
What happened to prices between 1942 and 1949
Between 1942 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.3 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 46.0%, which works out to an average of
5.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1942 bought what
$0.68 buys in 1949: the 1942 dollar
lost 31.5% of its purchasing power over
these 7 years.
Consumer prices rose 10.9% in 1942, up from 1941’s already
rapid 5.0% and the fastest increase since 1920, as the economy’s crash
conversion to war production collided with shrinking supplies of civilian
goods. The government tried to contain it: the General Maximum Price
Regulation, effective May 18 and known as “General Max,” froze most retail
prices at their highest March level, the broadest price control Washington
had ever attempted. Rationing followed close behind. Sugar rationing began
that May and gasoline rationing went nationwide in December, the leading
edge of a system that would eventually cover meat, coffee, shoes, tires, and
dozens of other goods before the war ended. The year’s other defining
wartime measure had nothing to do with prices. Executive Order 9066, signed
February 19, authorized the military to remove more than 110,000 Japanese
Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, from the West Coast and hold them in
inland internment camps for the war’s duration, one of the era’s starkest
violations of civil liberties. Even with price controls in place, consumer
prices climbed more than 10% for the first time since 1920, leaving the CPI
64.6% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at 3
cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1942 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.46: $1,000 becomes
$1,460, and $10,000 becomes $14,601.
Amount in 1942
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.46
$5.00
$7.30
$10.00
$14.60
$20.00
$29.20
$50.00
$73.01
$100
$146
$500
$730
$1,000
$1,460
$5,000
$7,301
$10,000
$14,601
$100,000
$146,012
$1,000,000
$1,460,123
Inflation by spending category, 1942–1949
Between 1942 and 1949, food rose the most, up 62.3%, while transportation rose the least, up 38.1%, against 46.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1942
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1942 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.56%
$146
Food
7.17%
$162
Apparel
6.24%
$153
Medical care
4.74%
$138
Transportation
4.72%
$138
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1942: 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 1942
$100 from 1942 had already become $110 by
1945, on its way to $146 in 1949; 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.
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1942 had the buying
power of $146; the year's average CPI of 23.8 is the level
behind every 1949 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1942 to 1949: $100 is worth $146 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1942-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1942 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1942-to-1949/