$100 in 1947 is worth $876 in 2005,
because prices increased 775.8% over that period, an average of
3.81% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$876
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
775.8%
Average inflation rate
3.81% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$876
Price difference ($100 base)
$776
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1947 → 2005
$876
$100 in 2005 → 1947
$11.42
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2005
Between 1947 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 775.8%, which works out to an average of
3.81% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2005: the 1947 dollar
lost 88.6% of its purchasing power over
these 58 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 2005 at the same ratio, 8.76: $1,000 becomes
$8,758, and $10,000 becomes $87,578.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2005
$1.00
$8.76
$5.00
$43.79
$10.00
$87.58
$20.00
$175
$50.00
$438
$100
$876
$500
$4,379
$1,000
$8,758
$5,000
$43,789
$10,000
$87,578
$100,000
$875,785
$1,000,000
$8,757,848
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2005
Between 1947 and 2005, medical care rose the most, up 2294.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 199.5%, against 775.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.81%
$876
Medical care
5.63%
$2,394
Transportation
3.94%
$940
Food
3.63%
$791
Apparel
1.91%
$299
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 2005
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 1947–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$876
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $241 by
1975, on its way to $876 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $876; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2005: $100 is worth $876 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2005/