$100 in 1943 is worth $173 in 1961,
because prices increased 72.8% over that period, an average of
3.09% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$173
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
72.8%
Average inflation rate
3.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$173
Price difference ($100 base)
$72.83
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1943 → 1961
$173
$100 in 1961 → 1943
$57.86
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1961
Between 1943 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 72.8%, which works out to an average of
3.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1961: the 1943 dollar
lost 42.1% of its purchasing power over
these 18 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.73: $1,000 becomes
$1,728, and $10,000 becomes $17,283.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.73
$5.00
$8.64
$10.00
$17.28
$20.00
$34.57
$50.00
$86.42
$100
$173
$500
$864
$1,000
$1,728
$5,000
$8,642
$10,000
$17,283
$100,000
$172,832
$1,000,000
$1,728,324
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1961
Between 1943 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 104.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 65.8%, against 72.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.09%
$173
Medical care
4.05%
$204
Transportation
3.61%
$189
Food
3.25%
$178
Apparel
2.85%
$166
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 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1943, at end
1943–1950
4.85%
39.3%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$173
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $153 by
1952, on its way to $173 in 1961; 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 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $173; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1961: $100 is worth $173 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1961/