$100 in 1945 is worth $536 in 1982,
because prices increased 436.1% over that period, an average of
4.64% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$536
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
436.1%
Average inflation rate
4.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$536
Price difference ($100 base)
$436
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1945 → 1982
$536
$100 in 1982 → 1945
$18.65
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1982
Between 1945 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 436.1%, which works out to an average of
4.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.19 buys in 1982: the 1945 dollar
lost 81.3% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.36: $1,000 becomes
$5,361, and $10,000 becomes $53,611.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.36
$5.00
$26.81
$10.00
$53.61
$20.00
$107
$50.00
$268
$100
$536
$500
$2,681
$1,000
$5,361
$5,000
$26,806
$10,000
$53,611
$100,000
$536,111
$1,000,000
$5,361,111
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1982
Between 1945 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 677.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 211.5%, against 436.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.64%
$536
Medical care
5.70%
$777
Transportation
5.01%
$610
Food
4.78%
$563
Apparel
3.12%
$311
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$458
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$536
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $170 by
1963, on its way to $536 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $536; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1982: $100 is worth $536 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1982/