$100 in 1944 is worth $412 in 1979,
because prices increased 312.5% over that period, an average of
4.13% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$412
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
312.5%
Average inflation rate
4.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$412
Price difference ($100 base)
$312
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1944 → 1979
$412
$100 in 1979 → 1944
$24.24
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1979
Between 1944 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 312.5%, which works out to an average of
4.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1979: the 1944 dollar
lost 75.8% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1979 at the same ratio, 4.12: $1,000 becomes
$4,125, and $10,000 becomes $41,250.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1979
$1.00
$4.12
$5.00
$20.62
$10.00
$41.25
$20.00
$82.50
$50.00
$206
$100
$412
$500
$2,062
$1,000
$4,125
$5,000
$20,625
$10,000
$41,250
$100,000
$412,500
$1,000,000
$4,125,000
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1979
Between 1944 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 481.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.9%, against 312.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.13%
$412
Medical care
5.16%
$582
Food
4.54%
$473
Transportation
4.35%
$443
Apparel
3.04%
$285
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$412
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $172 by
1962, on its way to $412 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $412; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1979: $100 is worth $412 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1979/