$100 in 1943 is worth $684 in 1988,
because prices increased 583.8% over that period, an average of
4.36% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$684
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
583.8%
Average inflation rate
4.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$684
Price difference ($100 base)
$584
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1943 → 1988
$684
$100 in 1988 → 1943
$14.62
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1988
Between 1943 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 583.8%, which works out to an average of
4.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1988: the 1943 dollar
lost 85.4% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1988 at the same ratio, 6.84: $1,000 becomes
$6,838, and $10,000 becomes $68,382.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1988
$1.00
$6.84
$5.00
$34.19
$10.00
$68.38
$20.00
$137
$50.00
$342
$100
$684
$500
$3,419
$1,000
$6,838
$5,000
$34,191
$10,000
$68,382
$100,000
$683,815
$1,000,000
$6,838,150
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1988
Between 1943 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 1137.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 315.1%, against 583.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.36%
$684
Medical care
5.75%
$1,238
Food
4.39%
$691
Transportation
4.36%
$684
Apparel
3.21%
$415
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 1988
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 1943–1988 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
1980–1988
4.62%
43.6%
$684
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $182 by
1965, on its way to $684 in 1988; 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: 1988
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $684; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1988: $100 is worth $684 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1988/