$100 in 1947 is worth $648 in 1993,
because prices increased 548.0% over that period, an average of
4.15% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$648
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
548.0%
Average inflation rate
4.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$648
Price difference ($100 base)
$548
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1947 → 1993
$648
$100 in 1993 → 1947
$15.43
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1993
Between 1947 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 548.0%, which works out to an average of
4.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1993: the 1947 dollar
lost 84.6% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1993 at the same ratio, 6.48: $1,000 becomes
$6,480, and $10,000 becomes $64,798.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1993
$1.00
$6.48
$5.00
$32.40
$10.00
$64.80
$20.00
$130
$50.00
$324
$100
$648
$500
$3,240
$1,000
$6,480
$5,000
$32,399
$10,000
$64,798
$100,000
$647,982
$1,000,000
$6,479,821
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1993
Between 1947 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 1391.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 235.1%, against 548.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.15%
$648
Medical care
6.05%
$1,492
Transportation
4.34%
$705
Food
3.91%
$585
Apparel
2.66%
$335
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 1993
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 1947–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$586
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$648
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $165 by
1969, on its way to $648 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $648; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1993: $100 is worth $648 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1993/