$100 in 1945 is worth $170 in 1963,
because prices increased 70.0% over that period, an average of
2.99% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$170
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
70.0%
Average inflation rate
2.99% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$170
Price difference ($100 base)
$70.00
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1945 → 1963
$170
$100 in 1963 → 1945
$58.82
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1963
Between 1945 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 70.0%, which works out to an average of
2.99% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1963: the 1945 dollar
lost 41.2% of its purchasing power over
these 18 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.70: $1,000 becomes
$1,700, and $10,000 becomes $17,000.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.70
$5.00
$8.50
$10.00
$17.00
$20.00
$34.00
$50.00
$85.00
$100
$170
$500
$850
$1,000
$1,700
$5,000
$8,500
$10,000
$17,000
$100,000
$170,000
$1,000,000
$1,700,000
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1963
Between 1945 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 102.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 49.4%, against 70.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.99%
$170
Medical care
4.00%
$203
Transportation
3.76%
$194
Food
3.31%
$180
Apparel
2.25%
$149
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1945, at end
1945–1950
6.01%
33.9%
$134
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$164
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$170
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $149 by
1954, on its way to $170 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $170; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1963: $100 is worth $170 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1963/