$100 in 1943 is worth $102 in 1944,
because prices increased 1.7% over that period, an average of
1.73% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.7%
Average inflation rate
1.73% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.73
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1943 → 1944
$102
$100 in 1944 → 1943
$98.30
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1944
Between 1943 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.7%, which works out to an average of
1.73% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1944: the 1943 dollar
lost 1.7% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1943 amount converts to 1944 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,017, and $10,000 becomes $10,173.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.09
$10.00
$10.17
$20.00
$20.35
$50.00
$50.87
$100
$102
$500
$509
$1,000
$1,017
$5,000
$5,087
$10,000
$10,173
$100,000
$101,734
$1,000,000
$1,017,341
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1944
Between 1943 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 7.2%, while food fell 1.2%, against 1.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.73%
$102
Apparel
7.19%
$107
Medical care
3.57%
$104
Transportation
0.00%
$100
Food
-1.17%
$98.83
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1943: 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 1943
$100 from 1943grew to $102 by 1944; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $102; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1944: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1944/