$100 in 1945 is worth $1,438 in 2020,
because prices increased 1337.8% over that period, an average of
3.62% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,438
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1337.8%
Average inflation rate
3.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,438
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,338
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1945 → 2020
$1,438
$100 in 2020 → 1945
$6.95
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2020
Between 1945 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1337.8%, which works out to an average of
3.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2020: the 1945 dollar
lost 93.0% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2020 at the same ratio, 14.38: $1,000 becomes
$14,378, and $10,000 becomes $143,784.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2020
$1.00
$14.38
$5.00
$71.89
$10.00
$144
$20.00
$288
$50.00
$719
$100
$1,438
$500
$7,189
$1,000
$14,378
$5,000
$71,892
$10,000
$143,784
$100,000
$1,437,839
$1,000,000
$14,378,389
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2020
Between 1945 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 4260.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 276.0%, against 1337.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.62%
$1,438
Medical care
5.16%
$4,360
Food
3.72%
$1,545
Transportation
3.44%
$1,266
Apparel
1.78%
$376
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1945–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,438
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $458 by
1980, on its way to $1,438 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,438; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,438 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2020/