$100 in 1945 is worth $1,049 in 2004,
because prices increased 949.4% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,049
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
949.4%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,049
Price difference ($100 base)
$949
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1945 → 2004
$1,049
$100 in 2004 → 1945
$9.53
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2004
Between 1945 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 949.4%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2004: the 1945 dollar
lost 90.5% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 2004 at the same ratio, 10.49: $1,000 becomes
$10,494, and $10,000 becomes $104,944.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2004
$1.00
$10.49
$5.00
$52.47
$10.00
$105
$20.00
$210
$50.00
$525
$100
$1,049
$500
$5,247
$1,000
$10,494
$5,000
$52,472
$10,000
$104,944
$100,000
$1,049,444
$1,000,000
$10,494,444
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2004
Between 1945 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 2505.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 283.4%, against 949.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$1,049
Medical care
5.68%
$2,606
Food
4.11%
$1,076
Transportation
4.02%
$1,026
Apparel
2.30%
$383
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 2004
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 1945–2004 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$726
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$957
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,049
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $299 by
1975, on its way to $1,049 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,049; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,049 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2004/