$100 in 1943 is worth $177 in 1963,
because prices increased 76.9% over that period, an average of
2.89% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$177
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
76.9%
Average inflation rate
2.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$177
Price difference ($100 base)
$76.88
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1943 → 1963
$177
$100 in 1963 → 1943
$56.54
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1963
Between 1943 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 76.9%, which works out to an average of
2.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1963: the 1943 dollar
lost 43.5% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.77: $1,000 becomes
$1,769, and $10,000 becomes $17,688.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.77
$5.00
$8.84
$10.00
$17.69
$20.00
$35.38
$50.00
$88.44
$100
$177
$500
$884
$1,000
$1,769
$5,000
$8,844
$10,000
$17,688
$100,000
$176,879
$1,000,000
$1,768,786
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1963
Between 1943 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 115.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 68.7%, against 76.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.89%
$177
Medical care
3.91%
$215
Transportation
3.38%
$194
Food
3.04%
$182
Apparel
2.65%
$169
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 4.85% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$177
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $154 by
1953, on its way to $177 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $177; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1963: $100 is worth $177 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1963/