$100 in 1942 is worth $238 in 1970,
because prices increased 138.0% over that period, an average of
3.15% a year.
$100 in 1942 has
the same buying power as
$238
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
138.0%
Average inflation rate
3.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$238
Price difference ($100 base)
$138
CPI in 1942
16.3
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1942
10.88%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1942 → 1970
$238
$100 in 1970 → 1942
$42.01
What happened to prices between 1942 and 1970
Between 1942 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.3 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 138.0%, which works out to an average of
3.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1942 bought what
$0.42 buys in 1970: the 1942 dollar
lost 58.0% of its purchasing power over
these 28 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 1970 at the same ratio, 2.38: $1,000 becomes
$2,380, and $10,000 becomes $23,804.
Amount in 1942
Value in 1970
$1.00
$2.38
$5.00
$11.90
$10.00
$23.80
$20.00
$47.61
$50.00
$119
$100
$238
$500
$1,190
$1,000
$2,380
$5,000
$11,902
$10,000
$23,804
$100,000
$238,037
$1,000,000
$2,380,368
Inflation by spending category, 1942–1970
Between 1942 and 1970, medical care rose the most, up 217.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 121.7%, against 138.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1942
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1942 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.15%
$238
Medical care
4.22%
$318
Food
3.39%
$255
Transportation
3.09%
$234
Apparel
2.88%
$222
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–).
Decade by decade: 1942 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.01% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1942–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1942, at end
1942–1950
5.01%
47.9%
$148
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$182
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$238
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1942
$100 from 1942 had already become $167 by
1956, on its way to $238 in 1970; 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 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1942 had the buying
power of $238; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1942 to 1970: $100 is worth $238 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1942-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1942 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1942-to-1970/