$100 in 1947 is worth $847 in 2004,
because prices increased 747.1% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$847
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
747.1%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$847
Price difference ($100 base)
$747
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1947 → 2004
$847
$100 in 2004 → 1947
$11.81
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2004
Between 1947 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 747.1%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2004: the 1947 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 2004 at the same ratio, 8.47: $1,000 becomes
$8,471, and $10,000 becomes $84,709.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2004
$1.00
$8.47
$5.00
$42.35
$10.00
$84.71
$20.00
$169
$50.00
$424
$100
$847
$500
$4,235
$1,000
$8,471
$5,000
$42,354
$10,000
$84,709
$100,000
$847,085
$1,000,000
$8,470,852
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2004
Between 1947 and 2004, medical care rose the most, up 2197.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 201.8%, against 747.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$847
Medical care
5.65%
$2,297
Transportation
3.89%
$882
Food
3.65%
$773
Apparel
1.96%
$302
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 2004
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 1947–2004 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
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$847
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $241 by
1975, on its way to $847 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $847; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2004: $100 is worth $847 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2004/