$100 in 1946 is worth $495 in 1982,
because prices increased 394.9% over that period, an average of
4.54% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$495
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
394.9%
Average inflation rate
4.54% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$495
Price difference ($100 base)
$395
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1946 → 1982
$495
$100 in 1982 → 1946
$20.21
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1982
Between 1946 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 394.9%, which works out to an average of
4.54% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1982: the 1946 dollar
lost 79.8% of its purchasing power over
these 36 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 1982 at the same ratio, 4.95: $1,000 becomes
$4,949, and $10,000 becomes $49,487.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1982
$1.00
$4.95
$5.00
$24.74
$10.00
$49.49
$20.00
$98.97
$50.00
$247
$100
$495
$500
$2,474
$1,000
$4,949
$5,000
$24,744
$10,000
$49,487
$100,000
$494,872
$1,000,000
$4,948,718
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1982
Between 1946 and 1982, medical care rose the most, up 640.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.3%, against 394.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.54%
$495
Medical care
5.72%
$740
Transportation
5.01%
$581
Food
4.52%
$492
Apparel
2.94%
$284
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1982 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$423
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$495
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $159 by
1964, on its way to $495 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $495; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1982: $100 is worth $495 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1982/