$100 in 1945 is worth $1,505 in 2021,
because prices increased 1405.4% over that period, an average of
3.63% a year.
$100 in 1945 has
the same buying power as
$1,505
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1405.4%
Average inflation rate
3.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,505
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,405
CPI in 1945
18
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1945 → 2021
$1,505
$100 in 2021 → 1945
$6.64
What happened to prices between 1945 and 2021
Between 1945 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 18 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1405.4%, which works out to an average of
3.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1945 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2021: the 1945 dollar
lost 93.4% of its purchasing power over
these 76 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 2021 at the same ratio, 15.05: $1,000 becomes
$15,054, and $10,000 becomes $150,539.
Amount in 1945
Value in 2021
$1.00
$15.05
$5.00
$75.27
$10.00
$151
$20.00
$301
$50.00
$753
$100
$1,505
$500
$7,527
$1,000
$15,054
$5,000
$75,269
$10,000
$150,539
$100,000
$1,505,389
$1,000,000
$15,053,889
Inflation by spending category, 1945–2021
Between 1945 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 4314.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 285.3%, against 1405.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1945
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1945 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.63%
$1,505
Medical care
5.11%
$4,414
Food
3.72%
$1,606
Transportation
3.58%
$1,451
Apparel
1.79%
$385
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 2021
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 1945–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,505
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1945
$100 from 1945 had already become $598 by
1985, on its way to $1,505 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1945 had the buying
power of $1,505; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1945 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,505 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1945 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1945-to-2021/