$100 in 1944 is worth $548 in 1982,
because prices increased 448.3% over that period, an average of
4.58% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$548
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
448.3%
Average inflation rate
4.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$548
Price difference ($100 base)
$448
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1944 → 1982
$548
$100 in 1982 → 1944
$18.24
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1982
Between 1944 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 448.3%, which works out to an average of
4.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1982: the 1944 dollar
lost 81.8% of its purchasing power over
these 38 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.48: $1,000 becomes
$5,483, and $10,000 becomes $54,830.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.48
$5.00
$27.41
$10.00
$54.83
$20.00
$110
$50.00
$274
$100
$548
$500
$2,741
$1,000
$5,483
$5,000
$27,415
$10,000
$54,830
$100,000
$548,295
$1,000,000
$5,482,955
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1982
Between 1944 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 697.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 228.2%, against 448.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.58%
$548
Medical care
5.62%
$797
Transportation
4.87%
$610
Food
4.72%
$576
Apparel
3.18%
$328
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$468
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$548
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $172 by
1962, on its way to $548 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $548; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1982: $100 is worth $548 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1982/