$100 in 1943 is worth $377 in 1978,
because prices increased 276.9% over that period, an average of
3.86% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$377
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
276.9%
Average inflation rate
3.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$377
Price difference ($100 base)
$277
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1943 → 1978
$377
$100 in 1978 → 1943
$26.53
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1978
Between 1943 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 276.9%, which works out to an average of
3.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1978: the 1943 dollar
lost 73.5% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.77: $1,000 becomes
$3,769, and $10,000 becomes $37,688.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.77
$5.00
$18.84
$10.00
$37.69
$20.00
$75.38
$50.00
$188
$100
$377
$500
$1,884
$1,000
$3,769
$5,000
$18,844
$10,000
$37,688
$100,000
$376,879
$1,000,000
$3,768,786
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1978
Between 1943 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 451.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 192.8%, against 276.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.86%
$377
Medical care
5.00%
$552
Food
4.19%
$421
Transportation
3.95%
$388
Apparel
3.12%
$293
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$224
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$377
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $173 by
1961, on its way to $377 in 1978; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $377; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1978: $100 is worth $377 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1978/