$100 in 1943 is worth $1,692 in 2022,
because prices increased 1591.6% over that period, an average of
3.64% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,692
in 2022
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1591.6%
Average inflation rate
3.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,692
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,592
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2022
292.655
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2022
8.00%
$100 in 1943 → 2022
$1,692
$100 in 2022 → 1943
$5.91
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2022
Between 1943 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1591.6%, which works out to an average of
3.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2022: the 1943 dollar
lost 94.1% of its purchasing power over
these 79 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 2022 at the same ratio, 16.92: $1,000 becomes
$16,916, and $10,000 becomes $169,165.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2022
$1.00
$16.92
$5.00
$84.58
$10.00
$169
$20.00
$338
$50.00
$846
$100
$1,692
$500
$8,458
$1,000
$16,916
$5,000
$84,582
$10,000
$169,165
$100,000
$1,691,647
$1,000,000
$16,916,474
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2022
Between 1943 and 2022, medical care rose the most, up 4779.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 357.1%, against 1591.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.64%
$1,692
Medical care
5.04%
$4,880
Food
3.72%
$1,786
Transportation
3.63%
$1,675
Apparel
1.94%
$457
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 2022
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 1943–2022 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
2020–2022
6.34%
13.1%
$1,692
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $576 by
1983, on its way to $1,692 in 2022; 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: 2022
In 2022, prices rose 8.0% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,692; the year's average CPI of 292.655 is the level
behind every 2022 figure on this page.
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,692 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2022/