$100 in 1949 is worth $847 in 2006,
because prices increased 747.1% over that period, an average of
3.82% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$847
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
747.1%
Average inflation rate
3.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$847
Price difference ($100 base)
$747
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1949 → 2006
$847
$100 in 2006 → 1949
$11.81
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2006
Between 1949 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 747.1%, which works out to an average of
3.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.12 buys in 2006: the 1949 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 57 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 2006 at the same ratio, 8.47: $1,000 becomes
$8,471, and $10,000 becomes $84,706.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2006
$1.00
$8.47
$5.00
$42.35
$10.00
$84.71
$20.00
$169
$50.00
$424
$100
$847
$500
$4,235
$1,000
$8,471
$5,000
$42,353
$10,000
$84,706
$100,000
$847,059
$1,000,000
$8,470,588
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2006
Between 1949 and 2006, medical care rose the most, up 2171.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 192.9%, against 747.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.82%
$847
Medical care
5.63%
$2,272
Transportation
3.76%
$819
Food
3.67%
$781
Apparel
1.90%
$293
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 2006
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 1949–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$847
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $255 by
1977, on its way to $847 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $847; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2006: $100 is worth $847 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2006/