$100 in 1949 is worth $136 in 1966,
because prices increased 36.1% over that period, an average of
1.83% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$136
in 1966
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
36.1%
Average inflation rate
1.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$136
Price difference ($100 base)
$36.13
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1966
32.4
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1966
2.86%
$100 in 1949 → 1966
$136
$100 in 1966 → 1949
$73.46
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1966
Between 1949 and 1966, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 32.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 36.1%, which works out to an average of
1.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.73 buys in 1966: the 1949 dollar
lost 26.5% of its purchasing power over
these 17 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 1966 at the same ratio, 1.36: $1,000 becomes
$1,361, and $10,000 becomes $13,613.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1966
$1.00
$1.36
$5.00
$6.81
$10.00
$13.61
$20.00
$27.23
$50.00
$68.07
$100
$136
$500
$681
$1,000
$1,361
$5,000
$6,807
$10,000
$13,613
$100,000
$136,134
$1,000,000
$1,361,345
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1966
Between 1949 and 1966, medical care rose the most, up 77.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 20.1%, against 36.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1966, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.83%
$136
Medical care
3.44%
$178
Transportation
2.26%
$146
Food
1.79%
$135
Apparel
1.08%
$120
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 1966
Prices climbed fastest in the 1950s, averaging 2.08% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1966 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
1960–1966
1.52%
9.5%
$136
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $118 by
1957, on its way to $136 in 1966; 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 1966, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $136; the year's average CPI of 32.4 is the level
behind every 1966 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.9% in 1966, nearly double 1965’s
1.6% as Vietnam War spending kept climbing without an offsetting tax
increase, pushing the economy closer to capacity and prices higher along
with it. Medicare coverage took effect that July 1, extending federal
health insurance to roughly 19 million Americans age 65 and older under
the program signed into law the year before. The Federal Reserve had
already moved to cool the overheating economy, raising its discount rate
the previous December over White House objections; the tightening carried
into 1966 as the first postwar credit crunch, freezing parts of the
housing and municipal bond markets even as inflation kept climbing. Congress widened
the wage floor’s reach that September 23, when the Fair Labor Standards
Amendments of 1966 set a $1.40 minimum wage effective the following
February and extended coverage to roughly 9 million more workers in
retail, hospitals, schools, and other services not previously covered.
Consumer prices finished 1966 227.3% above their 1913
level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at
$1.25 an hour for the rest of the year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1966: $100 is worth $136 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1966/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1966. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1966/