$100 in 1947 is worth $141 in 1965,
because prices increased 41.3% over that period, an average of
1.94% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$141
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
41.3%
Average inflation rate
1.94% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$141
Price difference ($100 base)
$41.26
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1947 → 1965
$141
$100 in 1965 → 1947
$70.79
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1965
Between 1947 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 41.3%, which works out to an average of
1.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1965: the 1947 dollar
lost 29.2% of its purchasing power over
these 18 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.41: $1,000 becomes
$1,413, and $10,000 becomes $14,126.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.41
$5.00
$7.06
$10.00
$14.13
$20.00
$28.25
$50.00
$70.63
$100
$141
$500
$706
$1,000
$1,413
$5,000
$7,063
$10,000
$14,126
$100,000
$141,256
$1,000,000
$1,412,556
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1965
Between 1947 and 1965, medical care rose the most, up 86.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 19.8%, against 41.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.94%
$141
Medical care
3.53%
$187
Transportation
3.07%
$172
Food
1.62%
$134
Apparel
1.01%
$120
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 2.62% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.25% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$141
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $122 by
1956, on its way to $141 in 1965; 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 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $141; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1965: $100 is worth $141 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1965/