$100 in 1947 is worth $134 in 1961,
because prices increased 34.1% over that period, an average of
2.12% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.1%
Average inflation rate
2.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.08
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1947 → 1961
$134
$100 in 1961 → 1947
$74.58
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1961
Between 1947 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.1%, which works out to an average of
2.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1961: the 1947 dollar
lost 25.4% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,341, and $10,000 becomes $13,408.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.70
$10.00
$13.41
$20.00
$26.82
$50.00
$67.04
$100
$134
$500
$670
$1,000
$1,341
$5,000
$6,704
$10,000
$13,408
$100,000
$134,081
$1,000,000
$1,340,807
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1961
Between 1947 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 69.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 15.5%, against 34.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.12%
$134
Medical care
3.85%
$170
Transportation
3.54%
$163
Food
1.67%
$126
Apparel
1.04%
$116
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 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 2.62% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1947, at end
1947–1950
2.62%
8.1%
$108
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$133
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $121 by
1954, on its way to $134 in 1961; 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 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $134; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1961: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1961/