$100 in 1947 is worth $665 in 1994,
because prices increased 564.6% over that period, an average of
4.11% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$665
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
564.6%
Average inflation rate
4.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$665
Price difference ($100 base)
$565
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1947 → 1994
$665
$100 in 1994 → 1947
$15.05
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1994
Between 1947 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 564.6%, which works out to an average of
4.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1994: the 1947 dollar
lost 85.0% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1994 at the same ratio, 6.65: $1,000 becomes
$6,646, and $10,000 becomes $66,457.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1994
$1.00
$6.65
$5.00
$33.23
$10.00
$66.46
$20.00
$133
$50.00
$332
$100
$665
$500
$3,323
$1,000
$6,646
$5,000
$33,229
$10,000
$66,457
$100,000
$664,574
$1,000,000
$6,645,740
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1994
Between 1947 and 1994, medical care rose the most, up 1463.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 234.3%, against 564.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.11%
$665
Medical care
6.02%
$1,563
Transportation
4.31%
$726
Food
3.88%
$599
Apparel
2.60%
$334
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 1994
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 1947–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$665
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $182 by
1971, on its way to $665 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $665; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1994: $100 is worth $665 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1994/