$100 in 1949 is worth $607 in 1993,
because prices increased 507.1% over that period, an average of
4.18% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$607
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
507.1%
Average inflation rate
4.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$607
Price difference ($100 base)
$507
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1949 → 1993
$607
$100 in 1993 → 1949
$16.47
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1993
Between 1949 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 507.1%, which works out to an average of
4.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1993: the 1949 dollar
lost 83.5% of its purchasing power over
these 44 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 1993 at the same ratio, 6.07: $1,000 becomes
$6,071, and $10,000 becomes $60,714.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1993
$1.00
$6.07
$5.00
$30.36
$10.00
$60.71
$20.00
$121
$50.00
$304
$100
$607
$500
$3,036
$1,000
$6,071
$5,000
$30,357
$10,000
$60,714
$100,000
$607,143
$1,000,000
$6,071,429
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1993
Between 1949 and 1993, medical care rose the most, up 1260.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 227.7%, against 507.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.18%
$607
Medical care
6.11%
$1,361
Transportation
4.12%
$590
Food
4.01%
$564
Apparel
2.73%
$328
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 1993
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 1949–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$549
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$607
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $170 by
1971, on its way to $607 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $607; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1993: $100 is worth $607 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1993/