$100 in 1946 is worth $1,390 in 2021,
because prices increased 1289.6% over that period, an average of
3.57% a year.
$100 in 1946 has
the same buying power as
$1,390
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1289.6%
Average inflation rate
3.57% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,390
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,290
CPI in 1946
19.5
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1946 → 2021
$1,390
$100 in 2021 → 1946
$7.20
What happened to prices between 1946 and 2021
Between 1946 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 19.5 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1289.6%, which works out to an average of
3.57% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1946 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2021: the 1946 dollar
lost 92.8% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2021 at the same ratio, 13.90: $1,000 becomes
$13,896, and $10,000 becomes $138,959.
Amount in 1946
Value in 2021
$1.00
$13.90
$5.00
$69.48
$10.00
$139
$20.00
$278
$50.00
$695
$100
$1,390
$500
$6,948
$1,000
$13,896
$5,000
$69,479
$10,000
$138,959
$100,000
$1,389,590
$1,000,000
$13,895,897
Inflation by spending category, 1946–2021
Between 1946 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 4102.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 251.7%, against 1289.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1946
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1946 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.57%
$1,390
Medical care
5.11%
$4,202
Food
3.58%
$1,403
Transportation
3.56%
$1,381
Apparel
1.69%
$352
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 2021
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 1946–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,390
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1946
$100 from 1946 had already become $466 by
1981, on its way to $1,390 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1946 had the buying
power of $1,390; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1946 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,390 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1946 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1946-to-2021/