$100 in 1945 is worth $175 in 1965,
because prices increased 75.0% over that period, an average of
2.84% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.0%
Average inflation rate
2.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.00
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1945 → 1965
$175
$100 in 1965 → 1945
$57.14
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1965
Between 1945 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.0%, which works out to an average of
2.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1965: the 1945 dollar
lost 42.9% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,750, and $10,000 becomes $17,500.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.75
$10.00
$17.50
$20.00
$35.00
$50.00
$87.50
$100
$175
$500
$875
$1,000
$1,750
$5,000
$8,750
$10,000
$17,500
$100,000
$175,000
$1,000,000
$1,750,000
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1965
Between 1945 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 111.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 52.2%, against 75.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.84%
$175
Medical care
3.82%
$212
Transportation
3.54%
$201
Food
3.16%
$186
Apparel
2.12%
$152
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.01% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $149 by
1955, on its way to $175 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $175; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1965: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1965/