$100 in 1944 is worth $705 in 1989,
because prices increased 604.5% over that period, an average of
4.43% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$705
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
604.5%
Average inflation rate
4.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$705
Price difference ($100 base)
$605
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1944 → 1989
$705
$100 in 1989 → 1944
$14.19
What happened to prices between 1944 and 1989
Between 1944 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 604.5%, which works out to an average of
4.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1989: the 1944 dollar
lost 85.8% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1989 at the same ratio, 7.05: $1,000 becomes
$7,045, and $10,000 becomes $70,455.
Amount in 1944
Value in 1989
$1.00
$7.05
$5.00
$35.23
$10.00
$70.45
$20.00
$141
$50.00
$352
$100
$705
$500
$3,523
$1,000
$7,045
$5,000
$35,227
$10,000
$70,455
$100,000
$704,545
$1,000,000
$7,045,455
Inflation by spending category, 1944–1989
Between 1944 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1187.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 298.0%, against 604.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.43%
$705
Medical care
5.84%
$1,287
Food
4.55%
$740
Transportation
4.48%
$718
Apparel
3.12%
$398
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$705
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $184 by
1966, on its way to $705 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $705; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 1989: $100 is worth $705 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-1989/