$100 in 1949 is worth $207 in 1974,
because prices increased 107.1% over that period, an average of
2.96% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$207
in 1974
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
107.1%
Average inflation rate
2.96% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$207
Price difference ($100 base)
$107
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1974
49.3
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1974
11.04%
$100 in 1949 → 1974
$207
$100 in 1974 → 1949
$48.28
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1974
Between 1949 and 1974, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 49.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 107.1%, which works out to an average of
2.96% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1974: the 1949 dollar
lost 51.7% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1974 at the same ratio, 2.07: $1,000 becomes
$2,071, and $10,000 becomes $20,714.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1974
$1.00
$2.07
$5.00
$10.36
$10.00
$20.71
$20.00
$41.43
$50.00
$104
$100
$207
$500
$1,036
$1,000
$2,071
$5,000
$10,357
$10,000
$20,714
$100,000
$207,143
$1,000,000
$2,071,429
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1974
Between 1949 and 1974, medical care rose the most, up 186.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 70.1%, against 107.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1974, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.96%
$207
Medical care
4.30%
$286
Food
3.21%
$220
Transportation
2.96%
$207
Apparel
2.15%
$170
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 1974
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.17% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1974 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$163
1970–1974
6.17%
27.1%
$207
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $126 by
1961, on its way to $207 in 1974; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 11.0% in 1974, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1974, prices rose 11.0% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $207; the year's average CPI of 49.3 is the level
behind every 1974 figure on this page.
1974 was the year the postwar economy broke its old rules. Consumer prices
rose 11.0%, the fastest annual increase since 1947, as the Arab oil embargo
that ran from October 1973 to March 1974 roughly quadrupled the price of
crude oil worldwide. Gasoline, which had averaged 38.5 cents a gallon in
1973, jumped to 53.2 cents, and shortages forced many states into odd-even
rationing at the pump. Nixon’s wage and price controls, in place in some form
since 1971, expired at the end of April, removing the last brake on prices
just as the oil shock hit. Nixon himself resigned in August over Watergate,
and Gerald Ford’s response to inflation, a voluntary “Whip Inflation Now”
campaign built around lapel buttons, became a symbol of how little
conventional politics could do against the problem. Prices kept climbing even
as the economy weakened: a recession that started in November 1973 dragged
on, the Dow fell to a bear-market bottom of 577.60 in December, and
unemployment was already rising toward the 9% it would reach in 1975. The
combination of rising prices and a shrinking economy gave the decade its
name: stagflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1974: $100 is worth $207 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1974/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1974. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1974/