$100 in 1947 is worth $137 in 1963,
because prices increased 37.2% over that period, an average of
2.00% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$137
in 1963
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
37.2%
Average inflation rate
2.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$137
Price difference ($100 base)
$37.22
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1963
30.6
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1963
1.32%
$100 in 1947 → 1963
$137
$100 in 1963 → 1947
$72.88
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1963
Between 1947 and 1963, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 30.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 37.2%, which works out to an average of
2.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1963: the 1947 dollar
lost 27.1% of its purchasing power over
these 16 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 1963 at the same ratio, 1.37: $1,000 becomes
$1,372, and $10,000 becomes $13,722.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1963
$1.00
$1.37
$5.00
$6.86
$10.00
$13.72
$20.00
$27.44
$50.00
$68.61
$100
$137
$500
$686
$1,000
$1,372
$5,000
$6,861
$10,000
$13,722
$100,000
$137,220
$1,000,000
$1,372,197
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1963
Between 1947 and 1963, medical care rose the most, up 78.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 17.5%, against 37.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1963, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.00%
$137
Medical care
3.69%
$179
Transportation
3.26%
$167
Food
1.61%
$129
Apparel
1.02%
$118
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 1963
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 2.62% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.11% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1963 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
1960–1963
1.11%
3.4%
$137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $120 by
1955, on its way to $137 in 1963; 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 1963, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $137; the year's average CPI of 30.6 is the level
behind every 1963 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1963, up slightly from 1962’s
1.0% as the expansion entered its third year with inflation still low,
conditions that gave Kennedy room to push the large tax cut he had
proposed to Congress. The cost of a first-class stamp rose that January
7, to 5 cents from 4 cents, the first postal rate change since 1958. That
August 28, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a quarter million people
gathered for the March on Washington, building pressure on Congress to
pass the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed that June. The year ended
in tragedy: Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through
Dallas on November 22, and Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force
One that same afternoon. Johnson would spend the following year pushing
Kennedy’s stalled tax and civil rights agenda through Congress. The
minimum wage rose again that September, to $1.25 an hour, the second step
of the phased increase set two years earlier. Consumer prices finished
1963 209.1% above their 1913 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1963: $100 is worth $137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1963/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1963. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1963/