$100 in 1947 is worth $292 in 1978,
because prices increased 192.4% over that period, an average of
3.52% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$292
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
192.4%
Average inflation rate
3.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$292
Price difference ($100 base)
$192
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1947 → 1978
$292
$100 in 1978 → 1947
$34.20
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1978
Between 1947 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 192.4%, which works out to an average of
3.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.34 buys in 1978: the 1947 dollar
lost 65.8% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1978 at the same ratio, 2.92: $1,000 becomes
$2,924, and $10,000 becomes $29,238.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1978
$1.00
$2.92
$5.00
$14.62
$10.00
$29.24
$20.00
$58.48
$50.00
$146
$100
$292
$500
$1,462
$1,000
$2,924
$5,000
$14,619
$10,000
$29,238
$100,000
$292,377
$1,000,000
$2,923,767
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1978
Between 1947 and 1978, medical care rose the most, up 357.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 104.0%, against 192.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.52%
$292
Medical care
5.03%
$458
Transportation
3.96%
$334
Food
3.59%
$299
Apparel
2.33%
$204
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$292
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $137 by
1963, on its way to $292 in 1978; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and prices fell 1.2% in 1949, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $292; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1978: $100 is worth $292 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1978/