$100 in 1945 is worth $1,120 in 2006,
because prices increased 1020.0% over that period, an average of
4.04% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,120
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1020.0%
Average inflation rate
4.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,120
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,020
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1945 → 2006
$1,120
$100 in 2006 → 1945
$8.93
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2006
Between 1945 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1020.0%, which works out to an average of
4.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2006: the 1945 dollar
lost 91.1% of its purchasing power over
these 61 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 2006 at the same ratio, 11.20: $1,000 becomes
$11,200, and $10,000 becomes $112,000.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2006
$1.00
$11.20
$5.00
$56.00
$10.00
$112
$20.00
$224
$50.00
$560
$100
$1,120
$500
$5,600
$1,000
$11,200
$5,000
$56,000
$10,000
$112,000
$100,000
$1,120,000
$1,000,000
$11,200,000
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2006
Between 1945 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 2725.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 280.6%, against 1020.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.04%
$1,120
Medical care
5.63%
$2,825
Transportation
4.07%
$1,138
Food
4.05%
$1,128
Apparel
2.22%
$381
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 2006
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 1945–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$1,120
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $299 by
1975, on its way to $1,120 in 2006; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,120; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2006: $100 is worth $1,120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2006/