$100 in 1943 is worth $576 in 1983,
because prices increased 475.7% over that period, an average of
4.47% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$576
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
475.7%
Average inflation rate
4.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$576
Price difference ($100 base)
$476
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1943 → 1983
$576
$100 in 1983 → 1943
$17.37
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1983
Between 1943 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 475.7%, which works out to an average of
4.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1983: the 1943 dollar
lost 82.6% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1983 at the same ratio, 5.76: $1,000 becomes
$5,757, and $10,000 becomes $57,572.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1983
$1.00
$5.76
$5.00
$28.79
$10.00
$57.57
$20.00
$115
$50.00
$288
$100
$576
$500
$2,879
$1,000
$5,757
$5,000
$28,786
$10,000
$57,572
$100,000
$575,723
$1,000,000
$5,757,225
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1983
Between 1943 and 1983, medical care rose the most, up 798.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 260.4%, against 475.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.47%
$576
Medical care
5.64%
$898
Transportation
4.69%
$625
Food
4.50%
$581
Apparel
3.26%
$360
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 1983
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$576
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $177 by
1963, on its way to $576 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $576; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1983: $100 is worth $576 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1983/