$100 in 1946 is worth $114 in 1947,
because prices increased 14.4% over that period, an average of
14.36% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$114
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
14.4%
Average inflation rate
14.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$114
Price difference ($100 base)
$14.36
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1946 → 1947
$114
$100 in 1947 → 1946
$87.44
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1947
Between 1946 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 14.4%, which works out to an average of
14.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.87 buys in 1947: the 1946 dollar
lost 12.6% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1946 amount converts to 1947 at the same ratio, 1.14: $1,000 becomes
$1,144, and $10,000 becomes $11,436.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.14
$5.00
$5.72
$10.00
$11.44
$20.00
$22.87
$50.00
$57.18
$100
$114
$500
$572
$1,000
$1,144
$5,000
$5,718
$10,000
$11,436
$100,000
$114,359
$1,000,000
$1,143,590
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1947
Between 1946 and 1947, food rose the most, up 21.7%, while medical care rose the least, up 8.0%, against 14.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
14.36%
$114
Food
21.72%
$122
Apparel
15.99%
$116
Transportation
10.78%
$111
Medical care
8.00%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1946: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946grew to $114 by 1947; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $114; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1947: $100 is worth $114 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1947/