$100 in 1943 is worth $857 in 1994,
because prices increased 756.6% over that period, an average of
4.30% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$857
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
756.6%
Average inflation rate
4.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$857
Price difference ($100 base)
$757
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1943 → 1994
$857
$100 in 1994 → 1943
$11.67
What happened to prices between 1943 and 1994
Between 1943 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 756.6%, which works out to an average of
4.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1994: the 1943 dollar
lost 88.3% of its purchasing power over
these 51 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 1994 at the same ratio, 8.57: $1,000 becomes
$8,566, and $10,000 becomes $85,665.
Amount in 1943
Value in 1994
$1.00
$8.57
$5.00
$42.83
$10.00
$85.66
$20.00
$171
$50.00
$428
$100
$857
$500
$4,283
$1,000
$8,566
$5,000
$42,832
$10,000
$85,665
$100,000
$856,647
$1,000,000
$8,566,474
Inflation by spending category, 1943–1994
Between 1943 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1783.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 379.9%, against 756.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.30%
$857
Medical care
5.93%
$1,884
Transportation
4.27%
$845
Food
4.27%
$844
Apparel
3.12%
$480
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 1994
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 1943–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$857
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $212 by
1969, on its way to $857 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $857; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 1994: $100 is worth $857 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-1994/