$100 in 1949 is worth $497 in 1988,
because prices increased 397.1% over that period, an average of
4.20% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$497
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
397.1%
Average inflation rate
4.20% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$497
Price difference ($100 base)
$397
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1949 → 1988
$497
$100 in 1988 → 1949
$20.12
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1988
Between 1949 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 397.1%, which works out to an average of
4.20% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.20 buys in 1988: the 1949 dollar
lost 79.9% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1988 at the same ratio, 4.97: $1,000 becomes
$4,971, and $10,000 becomes $49,706.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1988
$1.00
$4.97
$5.00
$24.85
$10.00
$49.71
$20.00
$99.41
$50.00
$249
$100
$497
$500
$2,485
$1,000
$4,971
$5,000
$24,853
$10,000
$49,706
$100,000
$497,059
$1,000,000
$4,970,588
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1988
Between 1949 and 1988, medical care rose the most, up 836.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 182.8%, against 397.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.20%
$497
Medical care
5.90%
$936
Transportation
4.17%
$492
Food
4.06%
$473
Apparel
2.70%
$283
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 1988
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 1949–1988 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
1980–1988
4.62%
43.6%
$497
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $154 by
1969, on its way to $497 in 1988; 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: 1988
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $497; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1988: $100 is worth $497 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1988/