$100 in 1943 is worth $835 in 1993,
because prices increased 735.3% over that period, an average of
4.34% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$835
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
735.3%
Average inflation rate
4.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$835
Price difference ($100 base)
$735
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1943 → 1993
$835
$100 in 1993 → 1943
$11.97
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1993
Between 1943 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 735.3%, which works out to an average of
4.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1993: the 1943 dollar
lost 88.0% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1993 at the same ratio, 8.35: $1,000 becomes
$8,353, and $10,000 becomes $83,526.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1993
$1.00
$8.35
$5.00
$41.76
$10.00
$83.53
$20.00
$167
$50.00
$418
$100
$835
$500
$4,176
$1,000
$8,353
$5,000
$41,763
$10,000
$83,526
$100,000
$835,260
$1,000,000
$8,352,601
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1993
Between 1943 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 1698.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 380.9%, against 735.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.34%
$835
Medical care
5.95%
$1,798
Food
4.31%
$824
Transportation
4.30%
$820
Apparel
3.19%
$481
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 1993
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 1943–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$755
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$835
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $193 by
1967, on its way to $835 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $835; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1993: $100 is worth $835 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1993/