$100 in 1947 is worth $466 in 1984,
because prices increased 365.9% over that period, an average of
4.25% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$466
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
365.9%
Average inflation rate
4.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$466
Price difference ($100 base)
$366
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1947 → 1984
$466
$100 in 1984 → 1947
$21.46
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1984
Between 1947 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 365.9%, which works out to an average of
4.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.21 buys in 1984: the 1947 dollar
lost 78.5% of its purchasing power over
these 37 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 1984 at the same ratio, 4.66: $1,000 becomes
$4,659, and $10,000 becomes $46,592.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1984
$1.00
$4.66
$5.00
$23.30
$10.00
$46.59
$20.00
$93.18
$50.00
$233
$100
$466
$500
$2,330
$1,000
$4,659
$5,000
$23,296
$10,000
$46,592
$100,000
$465,919
$1,000,000
$4,659,193
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1984
Between 1947 and 1984, medical care rose the most, up 691.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 155.9%, against 365.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.25%
$466
Medical care
5.75%
$791
Transportation
4.77%
$561
Food
4.01%
$428
Apparel
2.57%
$256
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 1984
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1950s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–1984 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$370
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$466
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $141 by
1965, on its way to $466 in 1984; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $466; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1984: $100 is worth $466 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1984/