$100 in 1943 is worth $1,813 in 2024,
because prices increased 1713.2% over that period, an average of
3.64% a year.
$100 in 1943 has
the same buying power as
$1,813
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1713.2%
Average inflation rate
3.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,813
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,713
CPI in 1943
17.3
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1943 → 2024
$1,813
$100 in 2024 → 1943
$5.52
What happened to prices between 1943 and 2024
Between 1943 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1713.2%, which works out to an average of
3.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1943 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2024: the 1943 dollar
lost 94.5% of its purchasing power over
these 81 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 2024 at the same ratio, 18.13: $1,000 becomes
$18,132, and $10,000 becomes $181,323.
Amount in 1943
Value in 2024
$1.00
$18.13
$5.00
$90.66
$10.00
$181
$20.00
$363
$50.00
$907
$100
$1,813
$500
$9,066
$1,000
$18,132
$5,000
$90,662
$10,000
$181,323
$100,000
$1,813,231
$1,000,000
$18,132,312
Inflation by spending category, 1943–2024
Between 1943 and 2024, medical care rose the most, up 4934.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 373.0%, against 1713.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1943
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1943 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.64%
$1,813
Medical care
4.96%
$5,034
Food
3.72%
$1,931
Transportation
3.56%
$1,702
Apparel
1.94%
$473
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 2024
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 1943–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,813
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1943
$100 from 1943 had already become $576 by
1983, on its way to $1,813 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1943 had the buying
power of $1,813; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1943 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,813 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1943 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1943-to-2024/