$100 in 1943 is worth $1,199 in 2007,
because prices increased 1098.5% over that period, an average of
3.96% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,199
in 2007
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1098.5%
Average inflation rate
3.96% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,199
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,099
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2007
207.342
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2007
2.85%
$100 in 1943 → 2007
$1,199
$100 in 2007 → 1943
$8.34
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2007
Between 1943 and 2007, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 207.342.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1098.5%, which works out to an average of
3.96% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2007: the 1943 dollar
lost 91.7% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 2007 at the same ratio, 11.99: $1,000 becomes
$11,985, and $10,000 becomes $119,851.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2007
$1.00
$11.99
$5.00
$59.93
$10.00
$120
$20.00
$240
$50.00
$599
$100
$1,199
$500
$5,993
$1,000
$11,985
$5,000
$59,925
$10,000
$119,851
$100,000
$1,198,509
$1,000,000
$11,985,087
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2007
Between 1943 and 2007, medical care rose the most, up 3034.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 328.1%, against 1098.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2007, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.96%
$1,199
Medical care
5.53%
$3,134
Food
3.94%
$1,187
Transportation
3.91%
$1,162
Apparel
2.30%
$428
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 2007
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 1943–2007 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
2000–2007
2.69%
20.4%
$1,199
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $257 by
1973, on its way to $1,199 in 2007; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2007
In 2007, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,199; the year's average CPI of 207.342 is the level
behind every 2007 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.8% in 2007, with gasoline averaging $2.80 a gallon, but the year is better
known for what began underneath prices. In August, French bank BNP Paribas froze funds tied to
U.S. subprime mortgages, and credit between banks tightened. The Federal Reserve responded with
a half-point cut on September 18, its first in four years, and took the policy rate from 5.25% to
4.25% by December. The economy peaked that month, by the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating, and the Great Recession followed. The median household earned about $50,200, and the
median new home cost $247,900. Congress ended the decade-long freeze on the federal minimum wage
in May, with the first of three steps to $5.85 in July. A first-class stamp cost 41 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2007: $100 is worth $1,199 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2007/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2007. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2007/