$100 in 1943 is worth $420 in 1979,
because prices increased 319.7% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$420
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
319.7%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$420
Price difference ($100 base)
$320
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1943 → 1979
$420
$100 in 1979 → 1943
$23.83
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1979
Between 1943 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 319.7%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1979: the 1943 dollar
lost 76.2% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 1979 at the same ratio, 4.20: $1,000 becomes
$4,197, and $10,000 becomes $41,965.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1979
$1.00
$4.20
$5.00
$20.98
$10.00
$41.97
$20.00
$83.93
$50.00
$210
$100
$420
$500
$2,098
$1,000
$4,197
$5,000
$20,983
$10,000
$41,965
$100,000
$419,653
$1,000,000
$4,196,532
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1979
Between 1943 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 502.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 205.4%, against 319.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$420
Medical care
5.12%
$603
Food
4.38%
$467
Transportation
4.22%
$443
Apparel
3.15%
$305
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$420
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $173 by
1961, on its way to $420 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $420; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1979: $100 is worth $420 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1979/