$100 in 1946 is worth $1,034 in 2006,
because prices increased 933.8% over that period, an average of
3.97% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$1,034
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
933.8%
Average inflation rate
3.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,034
Price difference ($100 base)
$934
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1946 → 2006
$1,034
$100 in 2006 → 1946
$9.67
What happened to prices between 1946 and 2006
Between 1946 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 933.8%, which works out to an average of
3.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2006: the 1946 dollar
lost 90.3% of its purchasing power over
these 60 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 2006 at the same ratio, 10.34: $1,000 becomes
$10,338, and $10,000 becomes $103,385.
Amount in 1946
Value in 2006
$1.00
$10.34
$5.00
$51.69
$10.00
$103
$20.00
$207
$50.00
$517
$100
$1,034
$500
$5,169
$1,000
$10,338
$5,000
$51,692
$10,000
$103,385
$100,000
$1,033,846
$1,000,000
$10,338,462
Inflation by spending category, 1946–2006
Between 1946 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 2589.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 247.4%, against 933.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.97%
$1,034
Medical care
5.64%
$2,690
Transportation
4.05%
$1,083
Food
3.89%
$986
Apparel
2.10%
$347
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 2006
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 1946–2006 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$670
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$883
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$1,034
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $292 by
1976, on its way to $1,034 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $1,034; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 2006: $100 is worth $1,034 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2006/