$100 in 1947 is worth $182 in 1971,
because prices increased 81.6% over that period, an average of
2.52% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$182
in 1971
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
81.6%
Average inflation rate
2.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$182
Price difference ($100 base)
$81.61
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1971
40.5
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1971
4.38%
$100 in 1947 → 1971
$182
$100 in 1971 → 1947
$55.06
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1971
Between 1947 and 1971, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 40.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 81.6%, which works out to an average of
2.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.55 buys in 1971: the 1947 dollar
lost 44.9% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1971 at the same ratio, 1.82: $1,000 becomes
$1,816, and $10,000 becomes $18,161.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1971
$1.00
$1.82
$5.00
$9.08
$10.00
$18.16
$20.00
$36.32
$50.00
$90.81
$100
$182
$500
$908
$1,000
$1,816
$5,000
$9,081
$10,000
$18,161
$100,000
$181,614
$1,000,000
$1,816,143
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1971
Between 1947 and 1971, medical care rose the most, up 167.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 53.1%, against 81.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1971, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.52%
$182
Medical care
4.18%
$267
Transportation
3.21%
$214
Food
2.18%
$168
Apparel
1.79%
$153
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 1971
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 4.38% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1971 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$174
1970–1971
4.38%
4.4%
$182
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $130 by
1959, on its way to $182 in 1971; 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 1971, prices rose 4.4% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $182; the year's average CPI of 40.5 is the level
behind every 1971 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 4.4% in 1971, down from 1970’s 5.7% as
the recession that started in December 1969 finally cooled demand. The bigger
economic story came that August 15, when President Nixon closed the “gold
window” that let foreign governments exchange dollars for gold, ending the
Bretton Woods system that had anchored the dollar since World War II. The
same address announced a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, the first
peacetime controls the country had seen, an attempt to break inflationary
expectations without the slower grind of tighter money. The “Nixon Shock,” as
it came to be known, let the dollar float against other currencies for the
first time and set the stage for a wage-and-price-control regime that would
run in various forms into 1973. Politically, the country lowered its voting
age that year: the 26th Amendment, ratified July 1, extended the vote to
18-year-olds, capping a campaign built on the argument that men old enough to
be drafted to Vietnam were old enough to vote for the people who sent them.
The Postal Service, independent since 1970’s reorganization, raised
first-class postage from 6 to 8 cents that May. A median household earned
$9,028 in 1971, up from $8,734 the year before, while gas held near 36 cents
a gallon and a new home sold for a median $25,200. Consumer prices stood
309.1% above their 1913 level by year’s end, still years away
from the double-digit inflation the controls were meant to prevent.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1971: $100 is worth $182 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1971/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1971. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1971/