$100 in 1949 is worth $346 in 1980,
because prices increased 246.2% over that period, an average of
4.09% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$346
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
246.2%
Average inflation rate
4.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$346
Price difference ($100 base)
$246
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1949 → 1980
$346
$100 in 1980 → 1949
$28.88
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1980
Between 1949 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 246.2%, which works out to an average of
4.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.29 buys in 1980: the 1949 dollar
lost 71.1% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1980 at the same ratio, 3.46: $1,000 becomes
$3,462, and $10,000 becomes $34,622.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1980
$1.00
$3.46
$5.00
$17.31
$10.00
$34.62
$20.00
$69.24
$50.00
$173
$100
$346
$500
$1,731
$1,000
$3,462
$5,000
$17,311
$10,000
$34,622
$100,000
$346,218
$1,000,000
$3,462,185
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1980
Between 1949 and 1980, medical care rose the most, up 406.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 122.8%, against 246.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.09%
$346
Medical care
5.37%
$506
Transportation
4.37%
$376
Food
4.10%
$347
Apparel
2.62%
$223
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 1980
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$346
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $132 by
1965, on its way to $346 in 1980; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $346; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1980: $100 is worth $346 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1980/