$100 in 1947 is worth $1,312 in 2022,
because prices increased 1212.4% over that period, an average of
3.49% a year.
$100 in 1947 has
the same buying power as
$1,312
in 2022
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1212.4%
Average inflation rate
3.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,312
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,212
CPI in 1947
22.3
CPI in 2022
292.655
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
Inflation in 2022
8.00%
$100 in 1947 → 2022
$1,312
$100 in 2022 → 1947
$7.62
What happened to prices between 1947 and 2022
Between 1947 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 22.3 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1212.4%, which works out to an average of
3.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1947 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2022: the 1947 dollar
lost 92.4% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 2022 at the same ratio, 13.12: $1,000 becomes
$13,124, and $10,000 becomes $131,235.
Amount in 1947
Value in 2022
$1.00
$13.12
$5.00
$65.62
$10.00
$131
$20.00
$262
$50.00
$656
$100
$1,312
$500
$6,562
$1,000
$13,124
$5,000
$65,618
$10,000
$131,235
$100,000
$1,312,354
$1,000,000
$13,123,543
Inflation by spending category, 1947–2022
Between 1947 and 2022, medical care rose the most, up 3948.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 218.5%, against 1212.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1947
spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1947 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.49%
$1,312
Medical care
5.06%
$4,049
Transportation
3.62%
$1,440
Food
3.44%
$1,267
Apparel
1.56%
$318
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 2022
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 1947–2022 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
2020–2022
6.34%
13.1%
$1,312
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1947
$100 from 1947 had already become $433 by
1982, on its way to $1,312 in 2022; 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: 2022
In 2022, prices rose 8.0% and $100 from 1947 had the buying
power of $1,312; the year's average CPI of 292.655 is the level
behind every 2022 figure on this page.
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1947 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,312 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1947 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1947-to-2022/