$100 in 1947 is worth $1,161 in 2020,
because prices increased 1060.6% over that period, an average of
3.42% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,161
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1060.6%
Average inflation rate
3.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,161
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,061
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1947 → 2020
$1,161
$100 in 2020 → 1947
$8.62
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2020
Between 1947 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1060.6%, which works out to an average of
3.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2020: the 1947 dollar
lost 91.4% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2020 at the same ratio, 11.61: $1,000 becomes
$11,606, and $10,000 becomes $116,059.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2020
$1.00
$11.61
$5.00
$58.03
$10.00
$116
$20.00
$232
$50.00
$580
$100
$1,161
$500
$5,803
$1,000
$11,606
$5,000
$58,029
$10,000
$116,059
$100,000
$1,160,587
$1,000,000
$11,605,874
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2020
Between 1947 and 2020, medical care rose the most, up 3743.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 195.9%, against 1060.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.42%
$1,161
Medical care
5.13%
$3,844
Food
3.35%
$1,109
Transportation
3.32%
$1,088
Apparel
1.50%
$296
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 2020
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 2010s (1.73% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1947–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,161
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,161 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,161; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,161 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2020/