$100 in 1949 is worth $685 in 1998,
because prices increased 584.9% over that period, an average of
4.00% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$685
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
584.9%
Average inflation rate
4.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$685
Price difference ($100 base)
$585
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1949 → 1998
$685
$100 in 1998 → 1949
$14.60
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1998
Between 1949 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 584.9%, which works out to an average of
4.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1998: the 1949 dollar
lost 85.4% of its purchasing power over
these 49 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 1998 at the same ratio, 6.85: $1,000 becomes
$6,849, and $10,000 becomes $68,487.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1998
$1.00
$6.85
$5.00
$34.24
$10.00
$68.49
$20.00
$137
$50.00
$342
$100
$685
$500
$3,424
$1,000
$6,849
$5,000
$34,244
$10,000
$68,487
$100,000
$684,874
$1,000,000
$6,848,739
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1998
Between 1949 and 1998, medical care rose the most, up 1535.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 226.0%, against 584.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.00%
$685
Medical care
5.87%
$1,636
Food
3.87%
$643
Transportation
3.86%
$641
Apparel
2.44%
$326
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 1998
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 1949–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$685
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $187 by
1973, on its way to $685 in 1998; 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: 1998
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $685; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1998: $100 is worth $685 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1998/