$100 in 1944 is worth $174 in 1963,
because prices increased 73.9% over that period, an average of
2.95% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.9%
Average inflation rate
2.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.86
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1944 → 1963
$174
$100 in 1963 → 1944
$57.52
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1963
Between 1944 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 73.9%, which works out to an average of
2.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1963: the 1944 dollar
lost 42.5% of its purchasing power over
these 19 years.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
Every 1944 amount converts to 1963 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,739, and $10,000 becomes $17,386.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.69
$10.00
$17.39
$20.00
$34.77
$50.00
$86.93
$100
$174
$500
$869
$1,000
$1,739
$5,000
$8,693
$10,000
$17,386
$100,000
$173,864
$1,000,000
$1,738,636
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1963
Between 1944 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 107.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 57.4%, against 73.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.95%
$174
Medical care
3.92%
$208
Transportation
3.56%
$194
Food
3.26%
$184
Apparel
2.42%
$157
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1944: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1944 to 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.38% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1944, at end
1944–1950
5.38%
36.9%
$137
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$168
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $152 by
1953, on its way to $174 in 1963; 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.
In 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $174; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1963: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1963/