$100 in 1949 is worth $112 in 1953,
because prices increased 12.2% over that period, an average of
2.92% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$112
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
12.2%
Average inflation rate
2.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$112
Price difference ($100 base)
$12.18
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1949 → 1953
$112
$100 in 1953 → 1949
$89.14
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1953
Between 1949 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 12.2%, which works out to an average of
2.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.89 buys in 1953: the 1949 dollar
lost 10.9% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.12: $1,000 becomes
$1,122, and $10,000 becomes $11,218.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.12
$5.00
$5.61
$10.00
$11.22
$20.00
$22.44
$50.00
$56.09
$100
$112
$500
$561
$1,000
$1,122
$5,000
$5,609
$10,000
$11,218
$100,000
$112,185
$1,000,000
$1,121,849
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1953
Between 1949 and 1953, transportation rose the most, up 19.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 5.6%, against 12.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.92%
$112
Transportation
4.64%
$120
Medical care
3.98%
$117
Food
3.15%
$113
Apparel
1.38%
$106
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 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 3.47% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1953 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$112
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $109 by
1951, on its way to $112 in 1953; 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 0.8% in 1953.
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $112; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% 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 1953: $100 is worth $112 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1953/