$100 in 1949 is worth $126 in 1961,
because prices increased 25.6% over that period, an average of
1.92% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$126
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
25.6%
Average inflation rate
1.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$126
Price difference ($100 base)
$25.63
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1949 → 1961
$126
$100 in 1961 → 1949
$79.60
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1961
Between 1949 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 25.6%, which works out to an average of
1.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.80 buys in 1961: the 1949 dollar
lost 20.4% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.26: $1,000 becomes
$1,256, and $10,000 becomes $12,563.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.26
$5.00
$6.28
$10.00
$12.56
$20.00
$25.13
$50.00
$62.82
$100
$126
$500
$628
$1,000
$1,256
$5,000
$6,282
$10,000
$12,563
$100,000
$125,630
$1,000,000
$1,256,303
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1961
Between 1949 and 1961, medical care rose the most, up 54.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 13.0%, against 25.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.92%
$126
Medical care
3.70%
$155
Transportation
2.61%
$136
Food
1.64%
$122
Apparel
1.02%
$113
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 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.01% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1961 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$124
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$126
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $113 by
1955, on its way to $126 in 1961; 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 prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $126; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1961: $100 is worth $126 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1961/