$100 in 1945 is worth $403 in 1979,
because prices increased 303.3% over that period, an average of
4.19% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$403
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
303.3%
Average inflation rate
4.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$403
Price difference ($100 base)
$303
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1945 → 1979
$403
$100 in 1979 → 1945
$24.79
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1979
Between 1945 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 303.3%, which works out to an average of
4.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.25 buys in 1979: the 1945 dollar
lost 75.2% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1979 at the same ratio, 4.03: $1,000 becomes
$4,033, and $10,000 becomes $40,333.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1979
$1.00
$4.03
$5.00
$20.17
$10.00
$40.33
$20.00
$80.67
$50.00
$202
$100
$403
$500
$2,017
$1,000
$4,033
$5,000
$20,167
$10,000
$40,333
$100,000
$403,333
$1,000,000
$4,033,333
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1979
Between 1945 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 467.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 170.4%, against 303.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.19%
$403
Medical care
5.24%
$567
Food
4.60%
$462
Transportation
4.48%
$443
Apparel
2.97%
$270
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$403
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $166 by
1961, on its way to $403 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $403; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1979: $100 is worth $403 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1979/