$100 in 1947 is worth $199 in 1973,
because prices increased 99.1% over that period, an average of
2.68% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$199
in 1973
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
99.1%
Average inflation rate
2.68% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$199
Price difference ($100 base)
$99.10
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1973
44.4
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
$100 in 1947 → 1973
$199
$100 in 1973 → 1947
$50.23
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1973
Between 1947 and 1973, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 44.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 99.1%, which works out to an average of
2.68% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1973: the 1947 dollar
lost 49.8% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1973 at the same ratio, 1.99: $1,000 becomes
$1,991, and $10,000 becomes $19,910.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1973
$1.00
$1.99
$5.00
$9.96
$10.00
$19.91
$20.00
$39.82
$50.00
$99.55
$100
$199
$500
$996
$1,000
$1,991
$5,000
$9,955
$10,000
$19,910
$100,000
$199,103
$1,000,000
$1,991,031
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1973
Between 1947 and 1973, medical care rose the most, up 187.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 61.9%, against 99.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1973, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.68%
$199
Medical care
4.14%
$287
Transportation
3.13%
$223
Food
2.70%
$200
Apparel
1.87%
$162
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 1973
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 4.60% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1973 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
1970–1973
4.60%
14.4%
$199
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $133 by
1960, on its way to $199 in 1973; 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 1973, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $199; the year's average CPI of 44.4 is the level
behind every 1973 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1973: $100 is worth $199 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1973/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1973. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1973/