$100 in 1946 is worth $372 in 1979,
because prices increased 272.3% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$372
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
272.3%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$372
Price difference ($100 base)
$272
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1946 → 1979
$372
$100 in 1979 → 1946
$26.86
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1979
Between 1946 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 272.3%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.27 buys in 1979: the 1946 dollar
lost 73.1% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1979 at the same ratio, 3.72: $1,000 becomes
$3,723, and $10,000 becomes $37,231.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1979
$1.00
$3.72
$5.00
$18.62
$10.00
$37.23
$20.00
$74.46
$50.00
$186
$100
$372
$500
$1,862
$1,000
$3,723
$5,000
$18,615
$10,000
$37,231
$100,000
$372,308
$1,000,000
$3,723,077
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1979
Between 1946 and 1979, medical care rose the most, up 440.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 146.8%, against 272.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$372
Medical care
5.24%
$540
Transportation
4.46%
$422
Food
4.32%
$404
Apparel
2.78%
$247
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$372
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $155 by
1962, on its way to $372 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $372; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1979: $100 is worth $372 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1979/