$100 in 1949 is worth $418 in 1983,
because prices increased 318.5% over that period, an average of
4.30% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$418
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
318.5%
Average inflation rate
4.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$418
Price difference ($100 base)
$318
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1949 → 1983
$418
$100 in 1983 → 1949
$23.90
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1983
Between 1949 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 318.5%, which works out to an average of
4.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1983: the 1949 dollar
lost 76.1% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1983 at the same ratio, 4.18: $1,000 becomes
$4,185, and $10,000 becomes $41,849.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1983
$1.00
$4.18
$5.00
$20.92
$10.00
$41.85
$20.00
$83.70
$50.00
$209
$100
$418
$500
$2,092
$1,000
$4,185
$5,000
$20,924
$10,000
$41,849
$100,000
$418,487
$1,000,000
$4,184,874
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1983
Between 1949 and 1983, medical care rose the most, up 579.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 145.6%, against 318.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.30%
$418
Medical care
5.80%
$680
Transportation
4.52%
$449
Food
4.14%
$398
Apparel
2.68%
$246
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 1983
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 1949–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$418
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $132 by
1965, on its way to $418 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $418; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1983: $100 is worth $418 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1983/