$100 in 1946 is worth $1,327 in 2020,
because prices increased 1227.2% over that period, an average of
3.56% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$1,327
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1227.2%
Average inflation rate
3.56% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,327
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,227
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1946 → 2020
$1,327
$100 in 2020 → 1946
$7.53
What happened to prices between 1946 and 2020
Between 1946 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1227.2%, which works out to an average of
3.56% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2020: the 1946 dollar
lost 92.5% of its purchasing power over
these 74 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 2020 at the same ratio, 13.27: $1,000 becomes
$13,272, and $10,000 becomes $132,724.
Amount in 1946
Value in 2020
$1.00
$13.27
$5.00
$66.36
$10.00
$133
$20.00
$265
$50.00
$664
$100
$1,327
$500
$6,636
$1,000
$13,272
$5,000
$66,362
$10,000
$132,724
$100,000
$1,327,236
$1,000,000
$13,272,359
Inflation by spending category, 1946–2020
Between 1946 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 4051.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 243.3%, against 1227.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.56%
$1,327
Medical care
5.16%
$4,151
Food
3.58%
$1,350
Transportation
3.42%
$1,206
Apparel
1.68%
$343
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1946–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,327
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $466 by
1981, on its way to $1,327 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $1,327; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,327 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2020/