$100 in 1943 is worth $1,566 in 2021,
because prices increased 1466.3% over that period, an average of
3.59% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,566
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1466.3%
Average inflation rate
3.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,566
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,466
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1943 → 2021
$1,566
$100 in 2021 → 1943
$6.38
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2021
Between 1943 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1466.3%, which works out to an average of
3.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2021: the 1943 dollar
lost 93.6% of its purchasing power over
these 78 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 2021 at the same ratio, 15.66: $1,000 becomes
$15,663, and $10,000 becomes $156,630.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2021
$1.00
$15.66
$5.00
$78.32
$10.00
$157
$20.00
$313
$50.00
$783
$100
$1,566
$500
$7,832
$1,000
$15,663
$5,000
$78,315
$10,000
$156,630
$100,000
$1,566,301
$1,000,000
$15,663,006
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2021
Between 1943 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 4590.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 335.2%, against 1466.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.59%
$1,566
Medical care
5.06%
$4,690
Food
3.64%
$1,624
Transportation
3.49%
$1,451
Apparel
1.90%
$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 2021
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1943–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,496
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,566
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $576 by
1983, on its way to $1,566 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,566; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,566 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2021/