$100 in 1946 is worth $1,100 in 2009,
because prices increased 1000.2% over that period, an average of
3.88% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$1,100
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1000.2%
Average inflation rate
3.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,100
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,000
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1946 → 2009
$1,100
$100 in 2009 → 1946
$9.09
What happened to prices between 1946 and 2009
Between 1946 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1000.2%, which works out to an average of
3.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2009: the 1946 dollar
lost 90.9% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2009 at the same ratio, 11.00: $1,000 becomes
$11,002, and $10,000 becomes $110,019.
Amount in 1946
Value in 2009
$1.00
$11.00
$5.00
$55.01
$10.00
$110
$20.00
$220
$50.00
$550
$100
$1,100
$500
$5,501
$1,000
$11,002
$5,000
$55,009
$10,000
$110,019
$100,000
$1,100,190
$1,000,000
$11,001,897
Inflation by spending category, 1946–2009
Between 1946 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 2904.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 249.1%, against 1000.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.88%
$1,100
Medical care
5.55%
$3,005
Food
3.88%
$1,101
Transportation
3.84%
$1,073
Apparel
2.00%
$349
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 2009
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 1946–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,100
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $292 by
1976, on its way to $1,100 in 2009; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $1,100; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,100 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2009/