$100 in 1943 is worth $1,451 in 2018,
because prices increased 1351.5% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,451
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1351.5%
Average inflation rate
3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,451
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,351
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1943 → 2018
$1,451
$100 in 2018 → 1943
$6.89
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2018
Between 1943 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1351.5%, which works out to an average of
3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2018: the 1943 dollar
lost 93.1% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2018 at the same ratio, 14.51: $1,000 becomes
$14,515, and $10,000 becomes $145,149.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2018
$1.00
$14.51
$5.00
$72.57
$10.00
$145
$20.00
$290
$50.00
$726
$100
$1,451
$500
$7,257
$1,000
$14,515
$5,000
$72,574
$10,000
$145,149
$100,000
$1,451,486
$1,000,000
$14,514,855
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2018
Between 1943 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 4227.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 352.0%, against 1351.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.63%
$1,451
Medical care
5.15%
$4,328
Food
3.66%
$1,483
Transportation
3.51%
$1,325
Apparel
2.03%
$452
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 2018
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.78% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–2018 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,260
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$1,451
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $377 by
1978, on its way to $1,451 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,451; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2018: $100 is worth $1,451 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2018/