$100 in 1946 is worth $214 in 1972,
because prices increased 114.4% over that period, an average of
2.98% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$214
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
114.4%
Average inflation rate
2.98% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$214
Price difference ($100 base)
$114
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1946 → 1972
$214
$100 in 1972 → 1946
$46.65
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1972
Between 1946 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 114.4%, which works out to an average of
2.98% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.47 buys in 1972: the 1946 dollar
lost 53.3% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1972 at the same ratio, 2.14: $1,000 becomes
$2,144, and $10,000 becomes $21,436.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1972
$1.00
$2.14
$5.00
$10.72
$10.00
$21.44
$20.00
$42.87
$50.00
$107
$100
$214
$500
$1,072
$1,000
$2,144
$5,000
$10,718
$10,000
$21,436
$100,000
$214,359
$1,000,000
$2,143,590
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1972
Between 1946 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 198.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 81.1%, against 114.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.98%
$214
Medical care
4.29%
$298
Transportation
3.41%
$239
Food
2.94%
$213
Apparel
2.31%
$181
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 1972
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 1946–1972 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$199
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$214
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $149 by
1959, on its way to $214 in 1972; 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 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $214; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1972: $100 is worth $214 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1972/