$100 in 1945 is worth $362 in 1978,
because prices increased 262.2% over that period, an average of
3.98% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$362
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
262.2%
Average inflation rate
3.98% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$362
Price difference ($100 base)
$262
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1945 → 1978
$362
$100 in 1978 → 1945
$27.61
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1978
Between 1945 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 262.2%, which works out to an average of
3.98% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.28 buys in 1978: the 1945 dollar
lost 72.4% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.62: $1,000 becomes
$3,622, and $10,000 becomes $36,222.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.62
$5.00
$18.11
$10.00
$36.22
$20.00
$72.44
$50.00
$181
$100
$362
$500
$1,811
$1,000
$3,622
$5,000
$18,111
$10,000
$36,222
$100,000
$362,222
$1,000,000
$3,622,222
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1978
Between 1945 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 419.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 159.2%, against 262.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.98%
$362
Medical care
5.12%
$519
Food
4.42%
$416
Transportation
4.19%
$388
Apparel
2.93%
$259
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$216
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$362
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $166 by
1961, on its way to $362 in 1978; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $362; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1978: $100 is worth $362 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1978/