$100 in 1943 is worth $1,240 in 2009,
because prices increased 1140.1% over that period, an average of
3.89% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,240
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1140.1%
Average inflation rate
3.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,240
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,140
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1943 → 2009
$1,240
$100 in 2009 → 1943
$8.06
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2009
Between 1943 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1140.1%, which works out to an average of
3.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2009: the 1943 dollar
lost 91.9% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 2009 at the same ratio, 12.40: $1,000 becomes
$12,401, and $10,000 becomes $124,010.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2009
$1.00
$12.40
$5.00
$62.00
$10.00
$124
$20.00
$248
$50.00
$620
$100
$1,240
$500
$6,200
$1,000
$12,401
$5,000
$62,005
$10,000
$124,010
$100,000
$1,240,098
$1,000,000
$12,400,983
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2009
Between 1943 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 3253.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 331.9%, against 1140.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.89%
$1,240
Medical care
5.47%
$3,354
Food
3.93%
$1,275
Transportation
3.74%
$1,127
Apparel
2.24%
$432
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 2009
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 1943–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,240
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $377 by
1978, on its way to $1,240 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,240; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,240 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2009/