$100 in 1947 is worth $120 in 1953,
because prices increased 19.7% over that period, an average of
3.05% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$120
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
19.7%
Average inflation rate
3.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$120
Price difference ($100 base)
$19.73
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1947 → 1953
$120
$100 in 1953 → 1947
$83.52
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1953
Between 1947 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 19.7%, which works out to an average of
3.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.84 buys in 1953: the 1947 dollar
lost 16.5% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1947 amount converts to 1953 at the same ratio, 1.20: $1,000 becomes
$1,197, and $10,000 becomes $11,973.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.20
$5.00
$5.99
$10.00
$11.97
$20.00
$23.95
$50.00
$59.87
$100
$120
$500
$599
$1,000
$1,197
$5,000
$5,987
$10,000
$11,973
$100,000
$119,731
$1,000,000
$1,197,309
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1953
Between 1947 and 1953, transportation rose the most, up 43.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 8.0%, against 19.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.05%
$120
Transportation
6.17%
$143
Medical care
4.22%
$128
Food
2.71%
$117
Apparel
1.29%
$108
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1947: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1947 to 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 3.47% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (2.62% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1953 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1947, at end
1947–1950
2.62%
8.1%
$108
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$120
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $108 by
1950, on its way to $120 in 1953; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 8.1% in 1948, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $120; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1953: $100 is worth $120 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1953/