$100 in 1946 is worth $157 in 1963,
because prices increased 56.9% over that period, an average of
2.69% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.9%
Average inflation rate
2.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.92
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1946 → 1963
$157
$100 in 1963 → 1946
$63.73
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1963
Between 1946 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.9%, which works out to an average of
2.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1963: the 1946 dollar
lost 36.3% of its purchasing power over
these 17 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,569, and $10,000 becomes $15,692.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.57
$5.00
$7.85
$10.00
$15.69
$20.00
$31.38
$50.00
$78.46
$100
$157
$500
$785
$1,000
$1,569
$5,000
$7,846
$10,000
$15,692
$100,000
$156,923
$1,000,000
$1,569,231
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1963
Between 1946 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 92.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 36.3%, against 56.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.69%
$157
Medical care
3.94%
$193
Transportation
3.69%
$185
Food
2.69%
$157
Apparel
1.84%
$136
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1963 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1946, at end
1946–1950
5.44%
23.6%
$124
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$152
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$157
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $138 by
1954, on its way to $157 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $157; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1963: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1963/