$100 in 1947 is worth $1,063 in 2015,
because prices increased 962.9% over that period, an average of
3.54% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,063
in 2015
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
962.9%
Average inflation rate
3.54% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,063
Price difference ($100 base)
$963
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2015
237.017
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2015
0.12%
$100 in 1947 → 2015
$1,063
$100 in 2015 → 1947
$9.41
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2015
Between 1947 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 962.9%, which works out to an average of
3.54% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2015: the 1947 dollar
lost 90.6% of its purchasing power over
these 68 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 2015 at the same ratio, 10.63: $1,000 becomes
$10,629, and $10,000 becomes $106,286.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2015
$1.00
$10.63
$5.00
$53.14
$10.00
$106
$20.00
$213
$50.00
$531
$100
$1,063
$500
$5,314
$1,000
$10,629
$5,000
$53,143
$10,000
$106,286
$100,000
$1,062,857
$1,000,000
$10,628,565
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2015
Between 1947 and 2015, medical care rose the most, up 3209.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 215.5%, against 962.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.54%
$1,063
Medical care
5.28%
$3,309
Transportation
3.56%
$1,076
Food
3.48%
$1,026
Apparel
1.70%
$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 2015
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.68% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–2015 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
2010–2015
1.68%
8.7%
$1,063
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,063 in 2015; 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: 2015
In 2015, prices rose 0.1% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,063; the year's average CPI of 237.017 is the level
behind every 2015 figure on this page.
2015 was almost a year with no inflation at all. Consumer prices rose 0.1%,
the smallest increase since the 2009 decline, because energy prices kept
falling. Gasoline averaged $2.45 a gallon, down from $3.37 in 2014, and a
strong dollar made imported goods cheaper. The picture was different outside
food and energy: core prices rose about 1.8% as rents and medical costs
climbed.
Incomes finally showed real progress. Median household income reached $56,516,
a large jump from $53,657, and the median new home sold for about $296,400. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp stayed at 49
cents.
The Federal Reserve chose December to end its zero-rate policy, raising the
target range to 0.25–0.50% for the first time since 2006. It moved even
though headline inflation was far under 2%, arguing that the drag from
energy was temporary. Earlier, a currency shift in China in August had shaken
global markets and pushed oil below $40 a barrel. Prices in 2015 ended
the year barely above their 2014 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2015: $100 is worth $1,063 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2015/