$100 in 1948 is worth $1,124 in 2021,
because prices increased 1024.4% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1948 has
the same buying power as
$1,124
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1024.4%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,124
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,024
CPI in 1948
24.1
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1948
8.07%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1948 → 2021
$1,124
$100 in 2021 → 1948
$8.89
What happened to prices between 1948 and 2021
Between 1948 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 24.1 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1024.4%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1948 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2021: the 1948 dollar
lost 91.1% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 2021 at the same ratio, 11.24: $1,000 becomes
$11,244, and $10,000 becomes $112,436.
Amount in 1948
Value in 2021
$1.00
$11.24
$5.00
$56.22
$10.00
$112
$20.00
$225
$50.00
$562
$100
$1,124
$500
$5,622
$1,000
$11,244
$5,000
$56,218
$10,000
$112,436
$100,000
$1,124,357
$1,000,000
$11,243,568
Inflation by spending category, 1948–2021
Between 1948 and 2021, medical care rose the most, up 3547.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 184.7%, against 1024.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1948
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1948 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$1,124
Medical care
5.05%
$3,648
Transportation
3.36%
$1,120
Food
3.29%
$1,064
Apparel
1.44%
$285
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 2021
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 1948–2021 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,074
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,124
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1948
$100 from 1948 had already become $413 by
1983, on its way to $1,124 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 1948 had the buying
power of $1,124; 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 1948 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,124 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1948 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1948-to-2021/