$100 in 1943 is worth $1,040 in 2002,
because prices increased 939.9% over that period, an average of
4.05% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,040
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
939.9%
Average inflation rate
4.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,040
Price difference ($100 base)
$940
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1943 → 2002
$1,040
$100 in 2002 → 1943
$9.62
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2002
Between 1943 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 939.9%, which works out to an average of
4.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2002: the 1943 dollar
lost 90.4% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 2002 at the same ratio, 10.40: $1,000 becomes
$10,399, and $10,000 becomes $103,988.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2002
$1.00
$10.40
$5.00
$51.99
$10.00
$104
$20.00
$208
$50.00
$520
$100
$1,040
$500
$5,199
$1,000
$10,399
$5,000
$51,994
$10,000
$103,988
$100,000
$1,039,884
$1,000,000
$10,398,844
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2002
Between 1943 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 2450.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 346.0%, against 939.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.05%
$1,040
Medical care
5.64%
$2,550
Food
4.03%
$1,030
Transportation
3.91%
$962
Apparel
2.57%
$446
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 2002
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 1943–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$995
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$1,040
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $257 by
1973, on its way to $1,040 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,040; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2002: $100 is worth $1,040 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2002/