$100 in 1943 is worth $622 in 1985,
because prices increased 522.0% over that period, an average of
4.45% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$622
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
522.0%
Average inflation rate
4.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$622
Price difference ($100 base)
$522
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1943 → 1985
$622
$100 in 1985 → 1943
$16.08
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1985
Between 1943 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 522.0%, which works out to an average of
4.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1985: the 1943 dollar
lost 83.9% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1985 at the same ratio, 6.22: $1,000 becomes
$6,220, and $10,000 becomes $62,197.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1985
$1.00
$6.22
$5.00
$31.10
$10.00
$62.20
$20.00
$124
$50.00
$311
$100
$622
$500
$3,110
$1,000
$6,220
$5,000
$31,098
$10,000
$62,197
$100,000
$621,965
$1,000,000
$6,219,653
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1985
Between 1943 and 1985, medical care rose the most, up 913.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 277.7%, against 522.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.45%
$622
Medical care
5.67%
$1,013
Transportation
4.63%
$669
Food
4.43%
$618
Apparel
3.21%
$378
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 1985
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 1943–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$622
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $177 by
1963, on its way to $622 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $622; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1985: $100 is worth $622 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1985/