$100 in 1947 is worth $978 in 2010,
because prices increased 877.8% over that period, an average of
3.69% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$978
in 2010
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
877.8%
Average inflation rate
3.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$978
Price difference ($100 base)
$878
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2010
218.056
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2010
1.64%
$100 in 1947 → 2010
$978
$100 in 2010 → 1947
$10.23
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2010
Between 1947 and 2010, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 218.056.
Cumulatively, prices increased 877.8%, which works out to an average of
3.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2010: the 1947 dollar
lost 89.8% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2010 at the same ratio, 9.78: $1,000 becomes
$9,778, and $10,000 becomes $97,783.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2010
$1.00
$9.78
$5.00
$48.89
$10.00
$97.78
$20.00
$196
$50.00
$489
$100
$978
$500
$4,889
$1,000
$9,778
$5,000
$48,891
$10,000
$97,783
$100,000
$977,830
$1,000,000
$9,778,296
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2010
Between 1947 and 2010, medical care rose the most, up 2777.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 199.5%, against 877.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2010, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.69%
$978
Medical care
5.48%
$2,877
Transportation
3.80%
$1,045
Food
3.57%
$911
Apparel
1.76%
$300
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 2010
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 1947–2010 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$978
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $272 by
1977, on its way to $978 in 2010; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2010
In 2010, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $978; the year's average CPI of 218.056 is the level
behind every 2010 figure on this page.
2010 was a year of recovery without much price pressure. The CPI rose 1.6%, a
return to growth after 2009’s deflation, with gasoline averaging $2.78 a
gallon as energy prices climbed back from their recession lows. Housing costs
barely moved: millions of foreclosed and vacant homes kept rents soft, and the
median new home sold for about $221,800. The federal minimum wage stayed at
$7.25, the level set in July 2009, and a first-class stamp cost 44 cents.
The Federal Reserve was more worried about too little inflation than too
much. Its policy rate sat at 0–0.25%, and in November it announced a further
$600 billion of Treasury purchases to hold down long-term borrowing costs.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July to tighten financial regulation,
while a 110 billion euro rescue of Greece in May showed that the crisis had
moved from American mortgages to European government debt. For anyone
comparing dollars across the decade, 2010 is a useful baseline: prices were
still close to their 2008 levels, and the years ahead brought a slow, steady
climb.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2010: $100 is worth $978 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2010/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2010. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2010/