$100 in 1949 is worth $130 in 1964,
because prices increased 30.3% over that period, an average of
1.78% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$130
in 1964
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
30.3%
Average inflation rate
1.78% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$130
Price difference ($100 base)
$30.25
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1964
31
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1964
1.31%
$100 in 1949 → 1964
$130
$100 in 1964 → 1949
$76.77
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1964
Between 1949 and 1964, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 31.
Cumulatively, prices increased 30.3%, which works out to an average of
1.78% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1964: the 1949 dollar
lost 23.2% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1964 at the same ratio, 1.30: $1,000 becomes
$1,303, and $10,000 becomes $13,025.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1964
$1.00
$1.30
$5.00
$6.51
$10.00
$13.03
$20.00
$26.05
$50.00
$65.13
$100
$130
$500
$651
$1,000
$1,303
$5,000
$6,513
$10,000
$13,025
$100,000
$130,252
$1,000,000
$1,302,521
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1964
Between 1949 and 1964, medical care rose the most, up 66.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 15.9%, against 30.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1964, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.78%
$130
Medical care
3.45%
$166
Transportation
2.37%
$142
Food
1.55%
$126
Apparel
0.99%
$116
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 1964
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1960s (1.16% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1964 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
1960–1964
1.16%
4.7%
$130
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $114 by
1956, on its way to $130 in 1964; 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 1964, prices rose 1.3% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $130; the year's average CPI of 31 is the level
behind every 1964 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.3% in 1964, matching 1963’s pace
even as a large federal tax cut took effect that year. The Revenue Act of
1964, signed February 26, lowered individual and corporate tax rates
significantly, the cut Kennedy had proposed the year before his death and
Johnson pushed through Congress as a Keynesian bet that lower taxes would
spur enough growth without stoking prices. Congress reshaped civil rights
law that July 2, when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment
and public accommodations, the most sweeping civil rights legislation
since Reconstruction. Vietnam policy shifted that August, when Congress
passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution after reported attacks on U.S. Navy
destroyers, authorizing Johnson to use military force in Vietnam without
a formal declaration of war. American pop culture changed that February
too: the Beatles landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport and played the Ed
Sullivan Show two days later for an estimated 73 million viewers,
igniting the “British Invasion.” Consumer prices finished 1964 213.1%
above their 1913 level. First-class postage held at 5
cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1964: $100 is worth $130 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1964/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1964. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1964/