$100 in 1947 is worth $704 in 1996,
because prices increased 603.6% over that period, an average of
4.06% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$704
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
603.6%
Average inflation rate
4.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$704
Price difference ($100 base)
$604
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1947 → 1996
$704
$100 in 1996 → 1947
$14.21
What happened to prices between 1947 and 1996
Between 1947 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 603.6%, which works out to an average of
4.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1996: the 1947 dollar
lost 85.8% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 1996 at the same ratio, 7.04: $1,000 becomes
$7,036, and $10,000 becomes $70,359.
Amount in 1947
Value in 1996
$1.00
$7.04
$5.00
$35.18
$10.00
$70.36
$20.00
$141
$50.00
$352
$100
$704
$500
$3,518
$1,000
$7,036
$5,000
$35,179
$10,000
$70,359
$100,000
$703,587
$1,000,000
$7,035,874
Inflation by spending category, 1947–1996
Between 1947 and 1996, medical care rose the most, up 1590.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 230.1%, against 603.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.06%
$704
Medical care
5.94%
$1,690
Transportation
4.26%
$773
Food
3.85%
$636
Apparel
2.47%
$330
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 1996
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 1947–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$704
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $182 by
1971, on its way to $704 in 1996; 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: 1996
In 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $704; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 1996: $100 is worth $704 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-1996/