$100 in 1947 is worth $807 in 2002,
because prices increased 706.7% over that period, an average of
3.87% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$807
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
706.7%
Average inflation rate
3.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$807
Price difference ($100 base)
$707
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1947 → 2002
$807
$100 in 2002 → 1947
$12.40
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2002
Between 1947 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 706.7%, which works out to an average of
3.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2002: the 1947 dollar
lost 87.6% of its purchasing power over
these 55 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 2002 at the same ratio, 8.07: $1,000 becomes
$8,067, and $10,000 becomes $80,673.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2002
$1.00
$8.07
$5.00
$40.34
$10.00
$80.67
$20.00
$161
$50.00
$403
$100
$807
$500
$4,034
$1,000
$8,067
$5,000
$40,336
$10,000
$80,673
$100,000
$806,726
$1,000,000
$8,067,265
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2002
Between 1947 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 2015.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 210.8%, against 706.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.87%
$807
Medical care
5.71%
$2,116
Transportation
3.91%
$826
Food
3.68%
$731
Apparel
2.08%
$311
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 2002
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 1947–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$772
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$807
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $241 by
1975, on its way to $807 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $807; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2002: $100 is worth $807 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2002/