$100 in 1949 is worth $659 in 1996,
because prices increased 559.2% over that period, an average of
4.09% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$659
in 1996
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
559.2%
Average inflation rate
4.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$659
Price difference ($100 base)
$559
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1996
156.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1996
2.95%
$100 in 1949 → 1996
$659
$100 in 1996 → 1949
$15.17
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1996
Between 1949 and 1996, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 156.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 559.2%, which works out to an average of
4.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1996: the 1949 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1996 at the same ratio, 6.59: $1,000 becomes
$6,592, and $10,000 becomes $65,924.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1996
$1.00
$6.59
$5.00
$32.96
$10.00
$65.92
$20.00
$132
$50.00
$330
$100
$659
$500
$3,296
$1,000
$6,592
$5,000
$32,962
$10,000
$65,924
$100,000
$659,244
$1,000,000
$6,592,437
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1996
Between 1949 and 1996, medical care rose the most, up 1441.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 222.8%, against 559.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1996, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.09%
$659
Medical care
5.99%
$1,542
Transportation
4.05%
$647
Food
3.93%
$613
Apparel
2.52%
$323
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 1996
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 1949–1996 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
1990–1996
3.09%
20.0%
$659
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $187 by
1973, on its way to $659 in 1996; 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: 1996
In 1996, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $659; the year's average CPI of 156.9 is the level
behind every 1996 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $35,500 in 1996, gas averaged $1.23 a gallon, up noticeably
from the mid-decade lull, and a new home cost roughly $140,000. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the
year, ticking back up from 1995 as energy prices firmed. Washington passed two of the decade’s
more consequential laws that year: in February, the Telecommunications Act rewrote the rules for
phone, cable, and broadcast media for the first time since 1934, opening local markets to
competition and easing ownership limits; in August, a welfare overhaul ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance, replacing it with block grants to states and time limits on
benefits. In October, the federal minimum wage rose to $4.75 an hour, its first increase in five
years and the opening step of a two-part law that would take it to $5.15 the following
September. Two sweeping new laws and a minimum wage finally on the move again made 1996 a year
that changed more about how the economy was governed than about how fast prices moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1996: $100 is worth $659 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1996/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1996. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1996/