$100 in 1946 is worth $1,154 in 2011,
because prices increased 1053.5% over that period, an average of
3.83% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$1,154
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1053.5%
Average inflation rate
3.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,154
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,054
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1946 → 2011
$1,154
$100 in 2011 → 1946
$8.67
What happened to prices between 1946 and 2011
Between 1946 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1053.5%, which works out to an average of
3.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2011: the 1946 dollar
lost 91.3% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 2011 at the same ratio, 11.54: $1,000 becomes
$11,535, and $10,000 becomes $115,353.
Amount in 1946
Value in 2011
$1.00
$11.54
$5.00
$57.68
$10.00
$115
$20.00
$231
$50.00
$577
$100
$1,154
$500
$5,768
$1,000
$11,535
$5,000
$57,677
$10,000
$115,353
$100,000
$1,153,533
$1,000,000
$11,535,333
Inflation by spending category, 1946–2011
Between 1946 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 3102.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 255.0%, against 1053.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.83%
$1,154
Medical care
5.48%
$3,202
Transportation
3.99%
$1,272
Food
3.83%
$1,151
Apparel
1.97%
$355
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 2011
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 1946–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,118
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,154
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $292 by
1976, on its way to $1,154 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $1,154; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,154 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2011/