$100 in 1943 is worth $1,064 in 2003,
because prices increased 963.6% over that period, an average of
4.02% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,064
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
963.6%
Average inflation rate
4.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,064
Price difference ($100 base)
$964
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1943 → 2003
$1,064
$100 in 2003 → 1943
$9.40
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2003
Between 1943 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 963.6%, which works out to an average of
4.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2003: the 1943 dollar
lost 90.6% of its purchasing power over
these 60 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 2003 at the same ratio, 10.64: $1,000 becomes
$10,636, and $10,000 becomes $106,358.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2003
$1.00
$10.64
$5.00
$53.18
$10.00
$106
$20.00
$213
$50.00
$532
$100
$1,064
$500
$5,318
$1,000
$10,636
$5,000
$53,179
$10,000
$106,358
$100,000
$1,063,584
$1,000,000
$10,635,838
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2003
Between 1943 and 2003, medical care rose the most, up 2552.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 334.9%, against 963.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.02%
$1,064
Medical care
5.62%
$2,653
Food
4.00%
$1,053
Transportation
3.90%
$991
Apparel
2.48%
$435
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 2003
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 1943–2003 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
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,064
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $257 by
1973, on its way to $1,064 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,064; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,064 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2003/