$100 in 1949 is worth $916 in 2010,
because prices increased 816.2% over that period, an average of
3.70% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$916
in 2010
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
816.2%
Average inflation rate
3.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$916
Price difference ($100 base)
$816
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2010
218.056
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2010
1.64%
$100 in 1949 → 2010
$916
$100 in 2010 → 1949
$10.91
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2010
Between 1949 and 2010, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 218.056.
Cumulatively, prices increased 816.2%, which works out to an average of
3.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.11 buys in 2010: the 1949 dollar
lost 89.1% of its purchasing power over
these 61 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 2010 at the same ratio, 9.16: $1,000 becomes
$9,162, and $10,000 becomes $91,620.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2010
$1.00
$9.16
$5.00
$45.81
$10.00
$91.62
$20.00
$183
$50.00
$458
$100
$916
$500
$4,581
$1,000
$9,162
$5,000
$45,810
$10,000
$91,620
$100,000
$916,202
$1,000,000
$9,162,017
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2010
Between 1949 and 2010, medical care rose the most, up 2524.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 192.9%, against 816.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2010, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.70%
$916
Medical care
5.50%
$2,625
Food
3.63%
$879
Transportation
3.62%
$875
Apparel
1.78%
$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 2010
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 1949–2010 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$916
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $305 by
1979, on its way to $916 in 2010; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2010
In 2010, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $916; the year's average CPI of 218.056 is the level
behind every 2010 figure on this page.
2010 was a year of recovery without much price pressure. The CPI rose 1.6%, a
return to growth after 2009’s deflation, with gasoline averaging $2.78 a
gallon as energy prices climbed back from their recession lows. Housing costs
barely moved: millions of foreclosed and vacant homes kept rents soft, and the
median new home sold for about $221,800. The federal minimum wage stayed at
$7.25, the level set in July 2009, and a first-class stamp cost 44 cents.
The Federal Reserve was more worried about too little inflation than too
much. Its policy rate sat at 0–0.25%, and in November it announced a further
$600 billion of Treasury purchases to hold down long-term borrowing costs.
Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July to tighten financial regulation,
while a 110 billion euro rescue of Greece in May showed that the crisis had
moved from American mortgages to European government debt. For anyone
comparing dollars across the decade, 2010 is a useful baseline: prices were
still close to their 2008 levels, and the years ahead brought a slow, steady
climb.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2010: $100 is worth $916 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2010/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2010. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2010/