$100 in 1949 is worth $113 in 1954,
because prices increased 13.0% over that period, an average of
2.48% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1954
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.0%
Average inflation rate
2.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.03
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1954
26.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1954
0.75%
$100 in 1949 → 1954
$113
$100 in 1954 → 1949
$88.48
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1954
Between 1949 and 1954, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 26.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.0%, which works out to an average of
2.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1954: the 1949 dollar
lost 11.5% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1954 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,130, and $10,000 becomes $11,303.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1954
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.65
$10.00
$11.30
$20.00
$22.61
$50.00
$56.51
$100
$113
$500
$565
$1,000
$1,130
$5,000
$5,651
$10,000
$11,303
$100,000
$113,025
$1,000,000
$1,130,252
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1954
Between 1949 and 1954, medical care rose the most, up 20.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 5.6%, against 13.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1954, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.48%
$113
Medical care
3.76%
$120
Transportation
3.38%
$118
Food
2.44%
$113
Apparel
1.10%
$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 1954
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.79% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1954 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1954
2.79%
11.6%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $109 by
1951, on its way to $113 in 1954; 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 0.7% in 1954.
In 1954, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $113; the year's average CPI of 26.9 is the level
behind every 1954 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1954, extending 1953’s 0.8%
slowdown even as the economy tipped into recession, an early example of
prices continuing to rise through a downturn rather than falling with it.
The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that recession from July
1953 to May 1954, as defense spending fell after the Korean War armistice
and the tighter monetary policy of the year before worked its way through
the economy. The Supreme Court reshaped a different part of American life
that spring: its unanimous May 17 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education
held that “separate but equal” public schools violated the Constitution,
overturning the legal basis for segregated education. Washington also
closed the book on a different fight that year. Following the televised
Army-McCarthy hearings that spring, the Senate voted 67 to 22 on December
2 to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy’s conduct, ending his dominance of
American politics after four years of anti-communist investigations.
Consumer prices finished 1954 171.7% above their 1913
level, essentially flat with 1953 as the mild recession
held the cost of living in check. First-class postage held at 3 cents,
and the minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1954: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1954/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1954. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1954/