$100 in 1947 is worth $187 in 1972,
because prices increased 87.4% over that period, an average of
2.55% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$187
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
87.4%
Average inflation rate
2.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$187
Price difference ($100 base)
$87.44
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1947 → 1972
$187
$100 in 1972 → 1947
$53.35
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1972
Between 1947 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 87.4%, which works out to an average of
2.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.53 buys in 1972: the 1947 dollar
lost 46.7% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1972 at the same ratio, 1.87: $1,000 becomes
$1,874, and $10,000 becomes $18,744.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1972
$1.00
$1.87
$5.00
$9.37
$10.00
$18.74
$20.00
$37.49
$50.00
$93.72
$100
$187
$500
$937
$1,000
$1,874
$5,000
$9,372
$10,000
$18,744
$100,000
$187,444
$1,000,000
$1,874,439
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1972
Between 1947 and 1972, medical care rose the most, up 176.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 56.1%, against 87.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.55%
$187
Medical care
4.15%
$276
Transportation
3.12%
$216
Food
2.26%
$175
Apparel
1.80%
$156
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 1972
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 3.79% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1972 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
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$187
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $130 by
1959, on its way to $187 in 1972; 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 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $187; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1972: $100 is worth $187 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1972/