$100 in 1947 is worth $1,030 in 2012,
because prices increased 929.6% over that period, an average of
3.65% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,030
in 2012
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
929.6%
Average inflation rate
3.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,030
Price difference ($100 base)
$930
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2012
229.594
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2012
2.07%
$100 in 1947 → 2012
$1,030
$100 in 2012 → 1947
$9.71
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2012
Between 1947 and 2012, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 229.594.
Cumulatively, prices increased 929.6%, which works out to an average of
3.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2012: the 1947 dollar
lost 90.3% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 2012 at the same ratio, 10.30: $1,000 becomes
$10,296, and $10,000 becomes $102,957.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2012
$1.00
$10.30
$5.00
$51.48
$10.00
$103
$20.00
$206
$50.00
$515
$100
$1,030
$500
$5,148
$1,000
$10,296
$5,000
$51,478
$10,000
$102,957
$100,000
$1,029,570
$1,000,000
$10,295,695
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2012
Between 1947 and 2012, medical care rose the most, up 2973.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 216.5%, against 929.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2012, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.65%
$1,030
Medical care
5.41%
$3,074
Transportation
3.86%
$1,175
Food
3.56%
$970
Apparel
1.79%
$316
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 2012
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 1947–2012 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
2010–2012
2.61%
5.3%
$1,030
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $272 by
1977, on its way to $1,030 in 2012; 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: 2012
In 2012, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,030; the year's average CPI of 229.594 is the level
behind every 2012 figure on this page.
2012 put a number on what the Federal Reserve was aiming for. In January the
Fed announced a 2% inflation target, and consumer prices rose 2.1% for the
year, almost exactly on it. Gasoline averaged $3.62 a gallon, another annual
high, but the pace of increase cooled from 2011’s 3.2% as food and core prices
grew more slowly.
The bigger story was housing and jobs. Home prices began to recover, and the
median new home sold for about $245,200, up from $227,200 the year before.
Median household income was $51,017. The federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 45 cents.
In September the Fed started a third round of asset purchases, this one with
no fixed end date, aimed at lowering unemployment. Overseas, the European
Central Bank’s July pledge to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro calmed
bond markets. A summer drought across the Midwest drove corn and soybean
prices to records, a shock that reached grocery shelves only partly, because
most of what shoppers pay for food covers processing and transport rather than
raw crops.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2012: $100 is worth $1,030 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2012/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2012. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2012/