$100 in 1944 is worth $1,471 in 2020,
because prices increased 1370.5% over that period, an average of
3.60% a year.
$100 in 1944 has
the same buying power as
$1,471
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1370.5%
Average inflation rate
3.60% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,471
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,371
CPI in 1944
17.6
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1944 → 2020
$1,471
$100 in 2020 → 1944
$6.80
What happened to prices between 1944 and 2020
Between 1944 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.6 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1370.5%, which works out to an average of
3.60% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1944 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2020: the 1944 dollar
lost 93.2% of its purchasing power over
these 76 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 2020 at the same ratio, 14.71: $1,000 becomes
$14,705, and $10,000 becomes $147,052.
Amount in 1944
Value in 2020
$1.00
$14.71
$5.00
$73.53
$10.00
$147
$20.00
$294
$50.00
$735
$100
$1,471
$500
$7,353
$1,000
$14,705
$5,000
$73,526
$10,000
$147,052
$100,000
$1,470,517
$1,000,000
$14,705,170
Inflation by spending category, 1944–2020
Between 1944 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 4373.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 296.2%, against 1370.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1944
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1944 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.60%
$1,471
Medical care
5.13%
$4,473
Food
3.70%
$1,581
Transportation
3.40%
$1,266
Apparel
1.83%
$396
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1944–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,239
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,471
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1944
$100 from 1944 had already become $590 by
1984, on its way to $1,471 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1944 had the buying
power of $1,471; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1944 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,471 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1944 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1944-to-2020/