$100 in 1948 is worth $890 in 2009,
because prices increased 790.2% over that period, an average of
3.65% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$890
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
790.2%
Average inflation rate
3.65% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$890
Price difference ($100 base)
$790
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1948 → 2009
$890
$100 in 2009 → 1948
$11.23
What happened to prices between 1948 and 2009
Between 1948 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 790.2%, which works out to an average of
3.65% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2009: the 1948 dollar
lost 88.8% of its purchasing power over
these 61 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 2009 at the same ratio, 8.90: $1,000 becomes
$8,902, and $10,000 becomes $89,020.
Amount in 1948
Value in 2009
$1.00
$8.90
$5.00
$44.51
$10.00
$89.02
$20.00
$178
$50.00
$445
$100
$890
$500
$4,451
$1,000
$8,902
$5,000
$44,510
$10,000
$89,020
$100,000
$890,195
$1,000,000
$8,901,950
Inflation by spending category, 1948–2009
Between 1948 and 2009, medical care rose the most, up 2508.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 182.5%, against 790.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.65%
$890
Medical care
5.49%
$2,608
Transportation
3.61%
$870
Food
3.54%
$835
Apparel
1.72%
$283
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 2009
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 1948–2009 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$542
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$715
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$890
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $271 by
1978, on its way to $890 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $890; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 2009: $100 is worth $890 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2009/