$100 in 1949 is worth $756 in 2002,
because prices increased 655.9% over that period, an average of
3.89% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$756
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
655.9%
Average inflation rate
3.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$756
Price difference ($100 base)
$656
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1949 → 2002
$756
$100 in 2002 → 1949
$13.23
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2002
Between 1949 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 655.9%, which works out to an average of
3.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2002: the 1949 dollar
lost 86.8% of its purchasing power over
these 53 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 2002 at the same ratio, 7.56: $1,000 becomes
$7,559, and $10,000 becomes $75,588.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2002
$1.00
$7.56
$5.00
$37.79
$10.00
$75.59
$20.00
$151
$50.00
$378
$100
$756
$500
$3,779
$1,000
$7,559
$5,000
$37,794
$10,000
$75,588
$100,000
$755,882
$1,000,000
$7,558,824
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2002
Between 1949 and 2002, medical care rose the most, up 1829.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 203.9%, against 655.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.89%
$756
Medical care
5.74%
$1,930
Food
3.75%
$705
Transportation
3.72%
$692
Apparel
2.12%
$304
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 2002
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 1949–2002 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$724
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$756
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $226 by
1975, on its way to $756 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $756; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2002: $100 is worth $756 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2002/