$100 in 1946 is worth $188 in 1969,
because prices increased 88.2% over that period, an average of
2.79% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$188
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
88.2%
Average inflation rate
2.79% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$188
Price difference ($100 base)
$88.21
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1946 → 1969
$188
$100 in 1969 → 1946
$53.13
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1969
Between 1946 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 88.2%, which works out to an average of
2.79% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1969: the 1946 dollar
lost 46.9% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1969 at the same ratio, 1.88: $1,000 becomes
$1,882, and $10,000 becomes $18,821.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1969
$1.00
$1.88
$5.00
$9.41
$10.00
$18.82
$20.00
$37.64
$50.00
$94.10
$100
$188
$500
$941
$1,000
$1,882
$5,000
$9,410
$10,000
$18,821
$100,000
$188,205
$1,000,000
$1,882,051
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1969
Between 1946 and 1969, medical care rose the most, up 155.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 65.1%, against 88.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.79%
$188
Medical care
4.16%
$255
Transportation
3.36%
$214
Food
2.77%
$187
Apparel
2.20%
$165
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 1969
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.44% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1969 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
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$188
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $144 by
1957, on its way to $188 in 1969; 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 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $188; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1969: $100 is worth $188 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1969/