$100 in 1944 is worth $370 in 1978,
because prices increased 270.5% over that period, an average of
3.93% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$370
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
270.5%
Average inflation rate
3.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$370
Price difference ($100 base)
$270
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1944 → 1978
$370
$100 in 1978 → 1944
$26.99
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1978
Between 1944 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 270.5%, which works out to an average of
3.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1978: the 1944 dollar
lost 73.0% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.70: $1,000 becomes
$3,705, and $10,000 becomes $37,045.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.70
$5.00
$18.52
$10.00
$37.05
$20.00
$74.09
$50.00
$185
$100
$370
$500
$1,852
$1,000
$3,705
$5,000
$18,523
$10,000
$37,045
$100,000
$370,455
$1,000,000
$3,704,545
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1978
Between 1944 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 432.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 173.2%, against 270.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.93%
$370
Medical care
5.04%
$533
Food
4.35%
$426
Transportation
4.07%
$388
Apparel
3.00%
$273
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$220
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$370
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $168 by
1960, on its way to $370 in 1978; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $370; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1978: $100 is worth $370 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1978/