$100 in 1946 is worth $334 in 1978,
because prices increased 234.4% over that period, an average of
3.84% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$334
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
234.4%
Average inflation rate
3.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$334
Price difference ($100 base)
$234
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1946 → 1978
$334
$100 in 1978 → 1946
$29.91
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1978
Between 1946 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 234.4%, which works out to an average of
3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.30 buys in 1978: the 1946 dollar
lost 70.1% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.34: $1,000 becomes
$3,344, and $10,000 becomes $33,436.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.34
$5.00
$16.72
$10.00
$33.44
$20.00
$66.87
$50.00
$167
$100
$334
$500
$1,672
$1,000
$3,344
$5,000
$16,718
$10,000
$33,436
$100,000
$334,359
$1,000,000
$3,343,590
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1978
Between 1946 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 394.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 136.6%, against 234.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.84%
$334
Medical care
5.12%
$494
Transportation
4.17%
$369
Food
4.12%
$364
Apparel
2.73%
$237
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$334
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $155 by
1962, on its way to $334 in 1978; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $334; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1978: $100 is worth $334 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1978/