$100 in 1947 is worth $1,099 in 2017,
because prices increased 999.2% over that period, an average of
3.48% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,099
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
999.2%
Average inflation rate
3.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,099
Price difference ($100 base)
$999
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1947 → 2017
$1,099
$100 in 2017 → 1947
$9.10
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2017
Between 1947 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 999.2%, which works out to an average of
3.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2017: the 1947 dollar
lost 90.9% of its purchasing power over
these 70 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 2017 at the same ratio, 10.99: $1,000 becomes
$10,992, and $10,000 becomes $109,919.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2017
$1.00
$10.99
$5.00
$54.96
$10.00
$110
$20.00
$220
$50.00
$550
$100
$1,099
$500
$5,496
$1,000
$10,992
$5,000
$54,960
$10,000
$109,919
$100,000
$1,099,193
$1,000,000
$10,991,928
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2017
Between 1947 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 3420.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 214.8%, against 999.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.48%
$1,099
Medical care
5.22%
$3,521
Transportation
3.47%
$1,090
Food
3.40%
$1,038
Apparel
1.65%
$315
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 2017
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.69% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$1,099
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,099 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,099; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2017: $100 is worth $1,099 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2017/