$100 in 1949 is worth $226 in 1975,
because prices increased 126.1% over that period, an average of
3.19% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$226
in 1975
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
126.1%
Average inflation rate
3.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$226
Price difference ($100 base)
$126
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1975
53.8
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1975
9.13%
$100 in 1949 → 1975
$226
$100 in 1975 → 1949
$44.24
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1975
Between 1949 and 1975, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 53.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 126.1%, which works out to an average of
3.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1975: the 1949 dollar
lost 55.8% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1975 at the same ratio, 2.26: $1,000 becomes
$2,261, and $10,000 becomes $22,605.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1975
$1.00
$2.26
$5.00
$11.30
$10.00
$22.61
$20.00
$45.21
$50.00
$113
$100
$226
$500
$1,130
$1,000
$2,261
$5,000
$11,303
$10,000
$22,605
$100,000
$226,050
$1,000,000
$2,260,504
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1975
Between 1949 and 1975, medical care rose the most, up 220.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 77.7%, against 126.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1975, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.19%
$226
Medical care
4.59%
$321
Food
3.41%
$239
Transportation
3.20%
$227
Apparel
2.24%
$178
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 1975
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.76% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1975 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
1970–1975
6.76%
38.7%
$226
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $127 by
1962, on its way to $226 in 1975; 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 1975, prices rose 9.1% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $226; the year's average CPI of 53.8 is the level
behind every 1975 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 9.1% in 1975, easing slightly from 1974’s
11.0% but still running far above anything the country had experienced before
the decade began. The recession that started in November 1973, the deepest
since the Great Depression, bottomed out that March, yet unemployment kept
climbing through the year and touched 9%, a combination of high inflation and
high joblessness that had no precedent in the postwar data. Vietnam ended
that April 30, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and the last
Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof. Fiscal
strain hit closer to home too: New York City, facing bankruptcy after years
of borrowing to paper over budget gaps, asked Washington for help that
October. President Ford’s initial refusal produced the Daily News headline
“Ford to City: Drop Dead,” though he ultimately signed a federal loan package
that December. Amid the gloom, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft
that April in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to sell a version of the BASIC
programming language for the Altair 8800, one of the first personal
computers sold to hobbyists. A median household earned $11,800 in 1975, a new
home sold for a median $39,300, and first-class postage held at 10 cents,
unchanged since 1974’s increase. Consumer prices stood 443.4%
above their 1913 level, with the decade barely past its
midpoint.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1975: $100 is worth $226 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1975/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1975. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1975/