$100 in 1947 is worth $1,215 in 2021,
because prices increased 1115.1% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,215
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1115.1%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,215
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,115
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1947 → 2021
$1,215
$100 in 2021 → 1947
$8.23
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2021
Between 1947 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1115.1%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2021: the 1947 dollar
lost 91.8% of its purchasing power over
these 74 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 2021 at the same ratio, 12.15: $1,000 becomes
$12,151, and $10,000 becomes $121,511.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2021
$1.00
$12.15
$5.00
$60.76
$10.00
$122
$20.00
$243
$50.00
$608
$100
$1,215
$500
$6,076
$1,000
$12,151
$5,000
$60,756
$10,000
$121,511
$100,000
$1,215,112
$1,000,000
$12,151,121
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2021
Between 1947 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 3790.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 203.2%, against 1115.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$1,215
Medical care
5.07%
$3,891
Transportation
3.47%
$1,247
Food
3.36%
$1,153
Apparel
1.51%
$303
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 2021
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 1947–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,215
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,215 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,215; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,215 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2021/