$100 in 1946 is worth $149 in 1959,
because prices increased 49.2% over that period, an average of
3.13% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$149
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
49.2%
Average inflation rate
3.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$149
Price difference ($100 base)
$49.23
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1946 → 1959
$149
$100 in 1959 → 1946
$67.01
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1959
Between 1946 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 49.2%, which works out to an average of
3.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.67 buys in 1959: the 1946 dollar
lost 33.0% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1959 at the same ratio, 1.49: $1,000 becomes
$1,492, and $10,000 becomes $14,923.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.49
$5.00
$7.46
$10.00
$14.92
$20.00
$29.85
$50.00
$74.62
$100
$149
$500
$746
$1,000
$1,492
$5,000
$7,462
$10,000
$14,923
$100,000
$149,231
$1,000,000
$1,492,308
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1959
Between 1946 and 1959, transportation rose the most, up 78.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 30.8%, against 49.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.13%
$149
Transportation
4.56%
$178
Medical care
4.26%
$172
Food
3.17%
$150
Apparel
2.09%
$131
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 1959
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.12% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1959 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$149
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $136 by
1952, on its way to $149 in 1959; 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 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $149; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1959: $100 is worth $149 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1959/