$100 in 1946 is worth $137 in 1953,
because prices increased 36.9% over that period, an average of
4.59% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$137
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
36.9%
Average inflation rate
4.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$137
Price difference ($100 base)
$36.92
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1946 → 1953
$137
$100 in 1953 → 1946
$73.03
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1953
Between 1946 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 36.9%, which works out to an average of
4.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1953: the 1946 dollar
lost 27.0% of its purchasing power over
these 7 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.37: $1,000 becomes
$1,369, and $10,000 becomes $13,692.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.37
$5.00
$6.85
$10.00
$13.69
$20.00
$27.38
$50.00
$68.46
$100
$137
$500
$685
$1,000
$1,369
$5,000
$6,846
$10,000
$13,692
$100,000
$136,923
$1,000,000
$1,369,231
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1953
Between 1946 and 1953, transportation rose the most, up 58.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 25.3%, against 36.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.59%
$137
Transportation
6.82%
$159
Food
5.23%
$143
Medical care
4.75%
$138
Apparel
3.27%
$125
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–).
Decade by decade: 1946 to 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (3.47% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1953 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $122 by
1949, on its way to $137 in 1953; 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.
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $137; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1953: $100 is worth $137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1953/