$100 in 1945 is worth $1,192 in 2009,
because prices increased 1091.9% over that period, an average of
3.95% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,192
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1091.9%
Average inflation rate
3.95% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,192
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,092
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1945 → 2009
$1,192
$100 in 2009 → 1945
$8.39
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2009
Between 1945 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1091.9%, which works out to an average of
3.95% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2009: the 1945 dollar
lost 91.6% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 2009 at the same ratio, 11.92: $1,000 becomes
$11,919, and $10,000 becomes $119,187.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2009
$1.00
$11.92
$5.00
$59.59
$10.00
$119
$20.00
$238
$50.00
$596
$100
$1,192
$500
$5,959
$1,000
$11,919
$5,000
$59,594
$10,000
$119,187
$100,000
$1,191,872
$1,000,000
$11,918,722
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2009
Between 1945 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 3056.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 282.4%, against 1091.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.95%
$1,192
Medical care
5.54%
$3,156
Food
4.04%
$1,260
Transportation
3.86%
$1,127
Apparel
2.12%
$382
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 2009
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 1945–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,192
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $299 by
1975, on its way to $1,192 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,192; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,192 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2009/