$100 in 1946 is worth $636 in 1989,
because prices increased 535.9% over that period, an average of
4.40% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$636
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
535.9%
Average inflation rate
4.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$636
Price difference ($100 base)
$536
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1946 → 1989
$636
$100 in 1989 → 1946
$15.73
What happened to prices between 1946 and 1989
Between 1946 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 535.9%, which works out to an average of
4.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1989: the 1946 dollar
lost 84.3% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 1989 at the same ratio, 6.36: $1,000 becomes
$6,359, and $10,000 becomes $63,590.
Amount in 1946
Value in 1989
$1.00
$6.36
$5.00
$31.79
$10.00
$63.59
$20.00
$127
$50.00
$318
$100
$636
$500
$3,179
$1,000
$6,359
$5,000
$31,795
$10,000
$63,590
$100,000
$635,897
$1,000,000
$6,358,974
Inflation by spending category, 1946–1989
Between 1946 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1094.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 244.8%, against 535.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.40%
$636
Medical care
5.94%
$1,194
Transportation
4.57%
$683
Food
4.38%
$632
Apparel
2.92%
$345
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$636
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $178 by
1968, on its way to $636 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $636; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 1989: $100 is worth $636 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-1989/