$100 in 1943 is worth $717 in 1989,
because prices increased 616.8% over that period, an average of
4.37% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$717
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
616.8%
Average inflation rate
4.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$717
Price difference ($100 base)
$617
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1943 → 1989
$717
$100 in 1989 → 1943
$13.95
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1989
Between 1943 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 616.8%, which works out to an average of
4.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1989: the 1943 dollar
lost 86.0% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1989 at the same ratio, 7.17: $1,000 becomes
$7,168, and $10,000 becomes $71,676.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1989
$1.00
$7.17
$5.00
$35.84
$10.00
$71.68
$20.00
$143
$50.00
$358
$100
$717
$500
$3,584
$1,000
$7,168
$5,000
$35,838
$10,000
$71,676
$100,000
$716,763
$1,000,000
$7,167,630
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1989
Between 1943 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1233.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 326.6%, against 616.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.37%
$717
Medical care
5.79%
$1,333
Food
4.42%
$732
Transportation
4.38%
$718
Apparel
3.20%
$427
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 1989
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 1943–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$717
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $182 by
1965, on its way to $717 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $717; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1989: $100 is worth $717 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1989/