$100 in 1945 is worth $156 in 1957,
because prices increased 56.1% over that period, an average of
3.78% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$156
in 1957
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.1%
Average inflation rate
3.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$156
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.11
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1957
28.1
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1957
3.31%
$100 in 1945 → 1957
$156
$100 in 1957 → 1945
$64.06
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1957
Between 1945 and 1957, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 28.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.1%, which works out to an average of
3.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1957: the 1945 dollar
lost 35.9% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1957 at the same ratio, 1.56: $1,000 becomes
$1,561, and $10,000 becomes $15,611.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1957
$1.00
$1.56
$5.00
$7.81
$10.00
$15.61
$20.00
$31.22
$50.00
$78.06
$100
$156
$500
$781
$1,000
$1,561
$5,000
$7,806
$10,000
$15,611
$100,000
$156,111
$1,000,000
$1,561,111
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1957
Between 1945 and 1957, transportation rose the most, up 74.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 41.7%, against 56.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1957, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.78%
$156
Transportation
4.73%
$174
Food
4.37%
$167
Medical care
4.29%
$166
Apparel
2.95%
$142
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–).
Decade by decade: 1945 to 1957
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.22% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1957 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1957
2.22%
16.6%
$156
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $144 by
1951, on its way to $156 in 1957; 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.
In 1957, prices rose 3.3% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $156; the year's average CPI of 28.1 is the level
behind every 1957 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in 1957, up from 1956’s 1.5% and
the sharpest increase since the Korean War price surge of 1951. The jump
fed a growing debate among economists over “cost-push” inflation, prices
climbing from rising wages and material costs rather than excess demand,
a debate that would recur for the next quarter century. The Federal
Reserve tightened policy to fight it, and by August the tighter money
combined with falling business investment to tip the economy into a
recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s
dating. The Cold War took a technological turn that October, when the
Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, on the
4th, stunning the American public and setting off both the Space Race and
a surge in federal science and defense spending the following year. Civil
rights reached a crisis that September in Little Rock, Arkansas: after
Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black
students from Central High School, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and
sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Supreme Court’s
desegregation order. Consumer prices finished 1957 183.8% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stood at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1957: $100 is worth $156 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1957/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1957. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1957/