$100 in 1949 is worth $109 in 1951,
because prices increased 9.2% over that period, an average of
4.52% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$109
in 1951
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
9.2%
Average inflation rate
4.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$109
Price difference ($100 base)
$9.24
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1951
26
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1951
7.88%
$100 in 1949 → 1951
$109
$100 in 1951 → 1949
$91.54
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1951
Between 1949 and 1951, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 26.
Cumulatively, prices increased 9.2%, which works out to an average of
4.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.92 buys in 1951: the 1949 dollar
lost 8.5% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1949 amount converts to 1951 at the same ratio, 1.09: $1,000 becomes
$1,092, and $10,000 becomes $10,924.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1951
$1.00
$1.09
$5.00
$5.46
$10.00
$10.92
$20.00
$21.85
$50.00
$54.62
$100
$109
$500
$546
$1,000
$1,092
$5,000
$5,462
$10,000
$10,924
$100,000
$109,244
$1,000,000
$1,092,437
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1951
Between 1949 and 1951, food rose the most, up 12.8%, while medical care rose the least, up 7.4%, against 9.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1951, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.52%
$109
Food
6.21%
$113
Transportation
4.43%
$109
Apparel
3.73%
$108
Medical care
3.65%
$107
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1949: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1949 to 1951
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 7.88% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1951 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1951
7.88%
7.9%
$109
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $101 by
1950, on its way to $109 in 1951; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 7.9% in 1951, and the smallest rise was 1.3% in 1950.
In 1951, prices rose 7.9% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $109; the year's average CPI of 26 is the level
behind every 1951 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% in 1951, up sharply from 1950’s
1.3% and the fastest increase since 1947, as Korean War buying and a
defense spending surge hit an economy still adjusting to peacetime. Much
of the jump came early in the year, before the government stepped in: the
Office of Price Stabilization imposed a general ceiling on prices January
26, and the Wage Stabilization Board froze wages soon after, the broadest
peacetime controls since the war began that June. The year’s more lasting
change came in monetary policy. On March 4, the Treasury and the Federal
Reserve signed the Accord, ending the Fed’s wartime obligation to hold
down interest rates on government bonds and freeing the central bank to
fight inflation on its own terms for the first time since 1942, a shift
that would shape Fed independence for decades. Congress raised taxes that
October to help pay for the war: the Revenue Act of 1951, signed October
20, lifted individual and corporate income taxes along with a range of
excise taxes, the third increase in taxes since fighting began in Korea.
Consumer prices finished 1951 162.6% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1951: $100 is worth $109 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1951/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1951. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1951/