$100 in 1949 is worth $773 in 2003,
because prices increased 673.1% over that period, an average of
3.86% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$773
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
673.1%
Average inflation rate
3.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$773
Price difference ($100 base)
$673
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1949 → 2003
$773
$100 in 2003 → 1949
$12.93
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2003
Between 1949 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 673.1%, which works out to an average of
3.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.13 buys in 2003: the 1949 dollar
lost 87.1% of its purchasing power over
these 54 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 2003 at the same ratio, 7.73: $1,000 becomes
$7,731, and $10,000 becomes $77,311.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2003
$1.00
$7.73
$5.00
$38.66
$10.00
$77.31
$20.00
$155
$50.00
$387
$100
$773
$500
$3,866
$1,000
$7,731
$5,000
$38,655
$10,000
$77,311
$100,000
$773,109
$1,000,000
$7,731,092
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2003
Between 1949 and 2003, medical care rose the most, up 1907.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 196.3%, against 673.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.86%
$773
Medical care
5.71%
$2,007
Food
3.72%
$720
Transportation
3.70%
$713
Apparel
2.03%
$296
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 2003
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 1949–2003 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
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$773
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $226 by
1975, on its way to $773 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $773; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2003: $100 is worth $773 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2003/