$100 in 1948 is worth $515 in 1989,
because prices increased 414.5% over that period, an average of
4.08% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$515
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
414.5%
Average inflation rate
4.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$515
Price difference ($100 base)
$415
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1948 → 1989
$515
$100 in 1989 → 1948
$19.44
What happened to prices between 1948 and 1989
Between 1948 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 414.5%, which works out to an average of
4.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.19 buys in 1989: the 1948 dollar
lost 80.6% of its purchasing power over
these 41 years.
Consumer prices rose 8.1% in 1948, down slightly from 1947’s
14.4% but still the second straight year of sharp postwar inflation now
that wartime price controls were fully gone. Congress moved to stabilize a
different economy that April, passing the Economic Cooperation Act to fund
the plan Secretary of State George Marshall had proposed the year before:
more than $13 billion over four years to rebuild Western Europe and counter
Soviet influence. The Cold War turned tense closer to the plan’s target
that June, when Soviet forces cut off road and rail access to the
Western-controlled sectors of Berlin. American and British aircraft
responded almost immediately with an airlift of food, fuel, and supplies
that would keep the city running for nearly a year. Domestic politics
produced its own upset that November: nearly every poll and pundit had
predicted a Republican win, but Harry Truman defeated New York Governor
Thomas Dewey, handing the Chicago Tribune its famously wrong “Dewey Defeats
Truman” headline. Consumer prices finished the year 143.4% above their
1913 level and 40.9% above 1929’s
pre-Depression peak. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 40 cents an hour.
Every 1948 amount converts to 1989 at the same ratio, 5.15: $1,000 becomes
$5,145, and $10,000 becomes $51,452.
Amount in 1948
Value in 1989
$1.00
$5.15
$5.00
$25.73
$10.00
$51.45
$20.00
$103
$50.00
$257
$100
$515
$500
$2,573
$1,000
$5,145
$5,000
$25,726
$10,000
$51,452
$100,000
$514,523
$1,000,000
$5,145,228
Inflation by spending category, 1948–1989
Between 1948 and 1989, medical care rose the most, up 936.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 179.1%, against 414.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.08%
$515
Medical care
5.87%
$1,037
Transportation
4.26%
$554
Food
3.90%
$479
Apparel
2.53%
$279
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1948: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1948 to 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (0.00% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1948–1989 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1948, at end
1948–1950
0.00%
0.0%
$100
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$123
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$161
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$342
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$515
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $144 by
1968, on its way to $515 in 1989; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $515; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 1989: $100 is worth $515 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-1989/