$100 in 1945 is worth $1,250 in 2011,
because prices increased 1149.7% over that period, an average of
3.90% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,250
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1149.7%
Average inflation rate
3.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,250
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,150
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1945 → 2011
$1,250
$100 in 2011 → 1945
$8.00
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2011
Between 1945 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1149.7%, which works out to an average of
3.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2011: the 1945 dollar
lost 92.0% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 2011 at the same ratio, 12.50: $1,000 becomes
$12,497, and $10,000 becomes $124,966.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2011
$1.00
$12.50
$5.00
$62.48
$10.00
$125
$20.00
$250
$50.00
$625
$100
$1,250
$500
$6,248
$1,000
$12,497
$5,000
$62,483
$10,000
$124,966
$100,000
$1,249,661
$1,000,000
$12,496,611
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2011
Between 1945 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 3263.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 288.9%, against 1149.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.90%
$1,250
Medical care
5.47%
$3,364
Transportation
4.01%
$1,336
Food
3.98%
$1,317
Apparel
2.08%
$389
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 2011
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 1945–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,211
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,250
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $458 by
1980, on its way to $1,250 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,250; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,250 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2011/