$100 in 1947 is worth $556 in 1989,
because prices increased 456.1% over that period, an average of
4.17% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$556
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
456.1%
Average inflation rate
4.17% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$556
Price difference ($100 base)
$456
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1947 → 1989
$556
$100 in 1989 → 1947
$17.98
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1989
Between 1947 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 456.1%, which works out to an average of
4.17% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1989: the 1947 dollar
lost 82.0% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1989 at the same ratio, 5.56: $1,000 becomes
$5,561, and $10,000 becomes $55,605.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1989
$1.00
$5.56
$5.00
$27.80
$10.00
$55.61
$20.00
$111
$50.00
$278
$100
$556
$500
$2,780
$1,000
$5,561
$5,000
$27,803
$10,000
$55,605
$100,000
$556,054
$1,000,000
$5,560,538
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1989
Between 1947 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 1005.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 197.2%, against 456.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.17%
$556
Medical care
5.89%
$1,106
Transportation
4.43%
$617
Food
4.00%
$519
Apparel
2.63%
$297
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 1989
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 1947–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$556
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $150 by
1967, on its way to $556 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $556; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1989: $100 is worth $556 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1989/