$100 in 1945 is worth $124 in 1947,
because prices increased 23.9% over that period, an average of
11.31% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$124
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
23.9%
Average inflation rate
11.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$124
Price difference ($100 base)
$23.89
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1945 → 1947
$124
$100 in 1947 → 1945
$80.72
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1947
Between 1945 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 23.9%, which works out to an average of
11.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.81 buys in 1947: the 1945 dollar
lost 19.3% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1945 amount converts to 1947 at the same ratio, 1.24: $1,000 becomes
$1,239, and $10,000 becomes $12,389.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.24
$5.00
$6.19
$10.00
$12.39
$20.00
$24.78
$50.00
$61.94
$100
$124
$500
$619
$1,000
$1,239
$5,000
$6,194
$10,000
$12,389
$100,000
$123,889
$1,000,000
$1,238,889
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1947
Between 1945 and 1947, food rose the most, up 39.3%, while medical care rose the least, up 13.4%, against 23.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
11.31%
$124
Food
18.03%
$139
Apparel
12.73%
$127
Transportation
7.87%
$116
Medical care
6.51%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1945: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $108 by
1946, on its way to $124 in 1947; 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 the smallest rise was 8.3% in 1946.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $124; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1947: $100 is worth $124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1947/