$100 in 1943 is worth $558 in 1982,
because prices increased 457.8% over that period, an average of
4.51% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$558
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
457.8%
Average inflation rate
4.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$558
Price difference ($100 base)
$458
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1943 → 1982
$558
$100 in 1982 → 1943
$17.93
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1982
Between 1943 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 457.8%, which works out to an average of
4.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1982: the 1943 dollar
lost 82.1% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.58: $1,000 becomes
$5,578, and $10,000 becomes $55,780.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.58
$5.00
$27.89
$10.00
$55.78
$20.00
$112
$50.00
$279
$100
$558
$500
$2,789
$1,000
$5,578
$5,000
$27,890
$10,000
$55,780
$100,000
$557,803
$1,000,000
$5,578,035
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1982
Between 1943 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 725.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 251.8%, against 457.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.51%
$558
Medical care
5.56%
$826
Transportation
4.75%
$610
Food
4.56%
$570
Apparel
3.28%
$352
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$476
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$558
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $177 by
1963, on its way to $558 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $558; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1982: $100 is worth $558 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1982/