$100 in 1946 is worth $162 in 1965,
because prices increased 61.5% over that period, an average of
2.56% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$162
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
61.5%
Average inflation rate
2.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$162
Price difference ($100 base)
$61.54
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1946 → 1965
$162
$100 in 1965 → 1946
$61.90
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1965
Between 1946 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 61.5%, which works out to an average of
2.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1965: the 1946 dollar
lost 38.1% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.62: $1,000 becomes
$1,615, and $10,000 becomes $16,154.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.62
$5.00
$8.08
$10.00
$16.15
$20.00
$32.31
$50.00
$80.77
$100
$162
$500
$808
$1,000
$1,615
$5,000
$8,077
$10,000
$16,154
$100,000
$161,538
$1,000,000
$1,615,385
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1965
Between 1946 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 101.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 39.0%, against 61.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.56%
$162
Medical care
3.76%
$202
Transportation
3.46%
$191
Food
2.59%
$163
Apparel
1.75%
$139
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$162
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $137 by
1955, on its way to $162 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $162; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1965: $100 is worth $162 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1965/