$100 in 1943 is worth $601 in 1984,
because prices increased 500.6% over that period, an average of
4.47% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$601
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
500.6%
Average inflation rate
4.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$601
Price difference ($100 base)
$501
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1943 → 1984
$601
$100 in 1984 → 1943
$16.65
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1984
Between 1943 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 500.6%, which works out to an average of
4.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1984: the 1943 dollar
lost 83.3% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 1984 at the same ratio, 6.01: $1,000 becomes
$6,006, and $10,000 becomes $60,058.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1984
$1.00
$6.01
$5.00
$30.03
$10.00
$60.06
$20.00
$120
$50.00
$300
$100
$601
$500
$3,003
$1,000
$6,006
$5,000
$30,029
$10,000
$60,058
$100,000
$600,578
$1,000,000
$6,005,780
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1984
Between 1943 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 853.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 267.3%, against 500.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.47%
$601
Medical care
5.65%
$954
Transportation
4.68%
$652
Food
4.48%
$604
Apparel
3.22%
$367
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 1984
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 1943–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$601
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $177 by
1963, on its way to $601 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $601; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1984: $100 is worth $601 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1984/