$100 in 1949 is worth $700 in 1999,
because prices increased 600.0% over that period, an average of
3.97% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$700
in 1999
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
600.0%
Average inflation rate
3.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$700
Price difference ($100 base)
$600
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1999
166.6
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1999
2.21%
$100 in 1949 → 1999
$700
$100 in 1999 → 1949
$14.29
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1999
Between 1949 and 1999, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 166.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 600.0%, which works out to an average of
3.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1999: the 1949 dollar
lost 85.7% of its purchasing power over
these 50 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 1999 at the same ratio, 7.00: $1,000 becomes
$7,000, and $10,000 becomes $70,000.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1999
$1.00
$7.00
$5.00
$35.00
$10.00
$70.00
$20.00
$140
$50.00
$350
$100
$700
$500
$3,500
$1,000
$7,000
$5,000
$35,000
$10,000
$70,000
$100,000
$700,000
$1,000,000
$7,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1999
Between 1949 and 1999, medical care rose the most, up 1593.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 221.8%, against 600.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1999, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.97%
$700
Medical care
5.82%
$1,693
Food
3.83%
$656
Transportation
3.83%
$653
Apparel
2.37%
$322
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 1999
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 1949–1999 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
1990–1999
2.73%
27.5%
$700
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $187 by
1973, on its way to $700 in 1999; 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: 1999
In 1999, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $700; the year's average CPI of 166.6 is the level
behind every 1999 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $40,700 in 1999, gas averaged $1.17 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $161,000. Inflation ran at 2.2% for the year, ticking back up from 1998’s decade low
as oil prices recovered from their collapse. The decade closed with two changes to the financial
system that would shape the one after it: on January 1, the euro launched as an accounting
currency across 11 European countries, trading alongside national currencies like the French
franc and German mark ahead of physical cash in 2002, and in November, Congress passed the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tearing down the Depression-era wall between commercial banks, investment
banks, and insurers. Stock markets, meanwhile, were absorbed in a boom of their own: the Nasdaq
surged through the year on soaring internet-stock valuations, and the Federal Reserve raised
interest rates three times in the second half of 1999 partly to cool the exuberance, even as it
pumped extra liquidity into the banking system to guard against any disruption from the Y2K
rollover. A first-class stamp cost 33 cents. Inflation had spent the decade falling from 1990’s
5.4% peak to averages closer to 2-3%, and 1999 closed it out almost exactly where the 1990s as a
whole had settled.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1999: $100 is worth $700 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1999/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1999. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1999/