$100 in 1944 is worth $1,073 in 2004,
because prices increased 973.3% over that period, an average of
4.03% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$1,073
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
973.3%
Average inflation rate
4.03% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,073
Price difference ($100 base)
$973
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1944 → 2004
$1,073
$100 in 2004 → 1944
$9.32
What happened to prices between 1944 and 2004
Between 1944 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 973.3%, which works out to an average of
4.03% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2004: the 1944 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 60 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 2004 at the same ratio, 10.73: $1,000 becomes
$10,733, and $10,000 becomes $107,330.
Amount in 1944
Value in 2004
$1.00
$10.73
$5.00
$53.66
$10.00
$107
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$537
$100
$1,073
$500
$5,366
$1,000
$10,733
$5,000
$53,665
$10,000
$107,330
$100,000
$1,073,295
$1,000,000
$10,732,955
Inflation by spending category, 1944–2004
Between 1944 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 2573.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 304.0%, against 973.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.03%
$1,073
Medical care
5.63%
$2,673
Food
4.08%
$1,102
Transportation
3.96%
$1,026
Apparel
2.35%
$404
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 2004
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 1944–2004 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$743
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$978
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,073
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $280 by
1974, on its way to $1,073 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $1,073; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,073 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-2004/