$100 in 1949 is worth $239 in 1976,
because prices increased 139.1% over that period, an average of
3.28% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$239
in 1976
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
139.1%
Average inflation rate
3.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$239
Price difference ($100 base)
$139
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1976
56.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1976
5.76%
$100 in 1949 → 1976
$239
$100 in 1976 → 1949
$41.83
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1976
Between 1949 and 1976, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 56.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 139.1%, which works out to an average of
3.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.42 buys in 1976: the 1949 dollar
lost 58.2% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1976 at the same ratio, 2.39: $1,000 becomes
$2,391, and $10,000 becomes $23,908.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1976
$1.00
$2.39
$5.00
$11.95
$10.00
$23.91
$20.00
$47.82
$50.00
$120
$100
$239
$500
$1,195
$1,000
$2,391
$5,000
$11,954
$10,000
$23,908
$100,000
$239,076
$1,000,000
$2,390,756
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1976
Between 1949 and 1976, medical care rose the most, up 251.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 84.3%, against 139.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1976, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.28%
$239
Medical care
4.76%
$351
Transportation
3.44%
$249
Food
3.40%
$246
Apparel
2.29%
$184
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 1976
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.59% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1976 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
1970–1976
6.59%
46.6%
$239
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $127 by
1962, on its way to $239 in 1976; 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 1976, prices rose 5.8% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $239; the year's average CPI of 56.9 is the level
behind every 1976 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.8% in 1976, the calmest pace since 1972,
as the economy pulled out of the 1973-75 recession and price growth settled
to roughly half its 1974 peak. The recovery gave Americans
room to celebrate: tall ships filled New York Harbor and fireworks lit cities
nationwide on July 4 for the country’s bicentennial, a rare moment of shared
celebration after Vietnam and Watergate. Politically, Jimmy Carter, a former
Georgia governor running as a Washington outsider, defeated incumbent Gerald
Ford that November, campaigning on restoring trust in government and bringing
down inflation and unemployment together. In a California garage, Steve
Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer that April to
sell the Apple I, a bare circuit board aimed at electronics hobbyists, a
business that looked far from consequential at the time. First-class
postage, which had risen to 13 cents that past December 31, held there
through the year, the longest stretch without a rate change since the Postal
Service’s creation. A median household earned $12,686 in 1976, a new home
sold for a median $44,200, and gas averaged 59 cents a gallon. Consumer
prices stood 474.7% above their 1913 level, a calm interlude
before inflation turned back up.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1976: $100 is worth $239 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1976/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1976. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1976/