$100 in 1943 is worth $150 in 1951,
because prices increased 50.3% over that period, an average of
5.22% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$150
in 1951
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
50.3%
Average inflation rate
5.22% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$150
Price difference ($100 base)
$50.29
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1951
26
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
$100 in 1943 → 1951
$150
$100 in 1951 → 1943
$66.54
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1951
Between 1943 and 1951, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 26.
Cumulatively, prices increased 50.3%, which works out to an average of
5.22% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1951: the 1943 dollar
lost 33.5% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1951 at the same ratio, 1.50: $1,000 becomes
$1,503, and $10,000 becomes $15,029.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1951
$1.00
$1.50
$5.00
$7.51
$10.00
$15.03
$20.00
$30.06
$50.00
$75.14
$100
$150
$500
$751
$1,000
$1,503
$5,000
$7,514
$10,000
$15,029
$100,000
$150,289
$1,000,000
$1,502,890
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1951
Between 1943 and 1951, food rose the most, up 64.9%, while medical care rose the least, up 42.0%, against 50.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1951, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.22%
$150
Food
6.45%
$165
Apparel
5.88%
$158
Transportation
5.34%
$152
Medical care
4.48%
$142
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–).
Decade by decade: 1943 to 1951
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 7.88% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (4.85% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1951 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1951
7.88%
7.9%
$150
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $129 by
1947, on its way to $150 in 1951; 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 1951, prices rose 7.9% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $150; the year's average CPI of 26 is the level
behind every 1951 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1951: $100 is worth $150 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1951/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1951. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1951/