$100 in 1943 is worth $162 in 1957,
because prices increased 62.4% over that period, an average of
3.53% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$162
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
62.4%
Average inflation rate
3.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$162
Price difference ($100 base)
$62.43
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1943 → 1957
$162
$100 in 1957 → 1943
$61.57
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1957
Between 1943 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 62.4%, which works out to an average of
3.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1957: the 1943 dollar
lost 38.4% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.62: $1,000 becomes
$1,624, and $10,000 becomes $16,243.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.62
$5.00
$8.12
$10.00
$16.24
$20.00
$32.49
$50.00
$81.21
$100
$162
$500
$812
$1,000
$1,624
$5,000
$8,121
$10,000
$16,243
$100,000
$162,428
$1,000,000
$1,624,277
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1957
Between 1943 and 1957, medical care rose the most, up 75.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 60.1%, against 62.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.53%
$162
Medical care
4.12%
$176
Transportation
4.04%
$174
Food
3.82%
$169
Apparel
3.42%
$160
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 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.22% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$162
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $139 by
1950, on its way to $162 in 1957; 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 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $162; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1957: $100 is worth $162 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1957/