$100 in 1945 is worth $689 in 1989,
because prices increased 588.9% over that period, an average of
4.48% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$689
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
588.9%
Average inflation rate
4.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$689
Price difference ($100 base)
$589
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1945 → 1989
$689
$100 in 1989 → 1945
$14.52
What happened to prices between 1945 and 1989
Between 1945 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 588.9%, which works out to an average of
4.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1989: the 1945 dollar
lost 85.5% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 1989 at the same ratio, 6.89: $1,000 becomes
$6,889, and $10,000 becomes $68,889.
Amount in 1945
Value in 1989
$1.00
$6.89
$5.00
$34.44
$10.00
$68.89
$20.00
$138
$50.00
$344
$100
$689
$500
$3,444
$1,000
$6,889
$5,000
$34,444
$10,000
$68,889
$100,000
$688,889
$1,000,000
$6,888,889
Inflation by spending category, 1945–1989
Between 1945 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1154.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 277.7%, against 588.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.48%
$689
Medical care
5.92%
$1,255
Food
4.60%
$723
Transportation
4.58%
$718
Apparel
3.07%
$378
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$689
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $186 by
1967, on its way to $689 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $689; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 1989: $100 is worth $689 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-1989/