$100 in 1948 is worth $933 in 2011,
because prices increased 833.4% over that period, an average of
3.61% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$933
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
833.4%
Average inflation rate
3.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$933
Price difference ($100 base)
$833
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1948 → 2011
$933
$100 in 2011 → 1948
$10.71
What happened to prices between 1948 and 2011
Between 1948 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 833.4%, which works out to an average of
3.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2011: the 1948 dollar
lost 89.3% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 2011 at the same ratio, 9.33: $1,000 becomes
$9,334, and $10,000 becomes $93,336.
Amount in 1948
Value in 2011
$1.00
$9.33
$5.00
$46.67
$10.00
$93.34
$20.00
$187
$50.00
$467
$100
$933
$500
$4,667
$1,000
$9,334
$5,000
$46,668
$10,000
$93,336
$100,000
$933,357
$1,000,000
$9,333,568
Inflation by spending category, 1948–2011
Between 1948 and 2011, medical care rose the most, up 2679.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 187.3%, against 833.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.61%
$933
Medical care
5.42%
$2,780
Transportation
3.77%
$1,031
Food
3.50%
$873
Apparel
1.69%
$287
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 2011
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 1948–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$905
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$933
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $271 by
1978, on its way to $933 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1948 had the buying
power of $933; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1948 to 2011: $100 is worth $933 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2011/