$100 in 1947 is worth $1,062 in 2014,
because prices increased 961.6% over that period, an average of
3.59% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,062
in 2014
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
961.6%
Average inflation rate
3.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,062
Price difference ($100 base)
$962
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2014
236.736
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2014
1.62%
$100 in 1947 → 2014
$1,062
$100 in 2014 → 1947
$9.42
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2014
Between 1947 and 2014, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 236.736.
Cumulatively, prices increased 961.6%, which works out to an average of
3.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2014: the 1947 dollar
lost 90.6% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 2014 at the same ratio, 10.62: $1,000 becomes
$10,616, and $10,000 becomes $106,160.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2014
$1.00
$10.62
$5.00
$53.08
$10.00
$106
$20.00
$212
$50.00
$531
$100
$1,062
$500
$5,308
$1,000
$10,616
$5,000
$53,080
$10,000
$106,160
$100,000
$1,061,596
$1,000,000
$10,615,964
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2014
Between 1947 and 2014, medical care rose the most, up 3124.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 219.6%, against 961.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2014, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.59%
$1,062
Medical care
5.32%
$3,224
Transportation
3.74%
$1,167
Food
3.51%
$1,007
Apparel
1.75%
$320
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 2014
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (2.08% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–2014 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
2010–2014
2.08%
8.6%
$1,062
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,062 in 2014; 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: 2014
In 2014, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,062; the year's average CPI of 236.736 is the level
behind every 2014 figure on this page.
2014 ended with the sharpest oil price drop in years. Consumer prices rose
1.6% for the year, close to 2013’s pace, but the annual figure hid a shift at
the pump: crude oil fell from above $100 a barrel in June to below $60 in
December, and gasoline finished the year near $2.25 a gallon after averaging
$3.37 across 2014. The drop reflected record U.S. shale output, softer
global demand, and OPEC’s decision in November to keep producing.
For households, cheaper fuel arrived just as the labor market strengthened.
Median household income was $53,657, essentially flat on the prior year, and
the median new home sold for about $288,500. The federal minimum wage stayed
at $7.25 for a fifth year, and a first-class stamp rose to 49 cents.
The Federal Reserve ended its bond purchases in October but left its policy
rate at zero. A stronger dollar helped hold down import prices. Because
energy weighs heavily in the CPI, the late-year slide carried into 2015, which
posted the smallest annual increase of the decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2014: $100 is worth $1,062 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2014/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2014. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2014/