$100 in 1949 is worth $996 in 2015,
because prices increased 895.9% over that period, an average of
3.54% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$996
in 2015
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
895.9%
Average inflation rate
3.54% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$996
Price difference ($100 base)
$896
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2015
237.017
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2015
0.12%
$100 in 1949 → 2015
$996
$100 in 2015 → 1949
$10.04
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2015
Between 1949 and 2015, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 237.017.
Cumulatively, prices increased 895.9%, which works out to an average of
3.54% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2015: the 1949 dollar
lost 90.0% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 2015 at the same ratio, 9.96: $1,000 becomes
$9,959, and $10,000 becomes $99,587.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2015
$1.00
$9.96
$5.00
$49.79
$10.00
$99.59
$20.00
$199
$50.00
$498
$100
$996
$500
$4,979
$1,000
$9,959
$5,000
$49,793
$10,000
$99,587
$100,000
$995,870
$1,000,000
$9,958,697
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2015
Between 1949 and 2015, medical care rose the most, up 2918.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 208.6%, against 895.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2015, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.54%
$996
Medical care
5.30%
$3,019
Food
3.53%
$989
Transportation
3.39%
$901
Apparel
1.72%
$309
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 2015
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 1949–2015 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
2010–2015
1.68%
8.7%
$996
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $437 by
1984, on its way to $996 in 2015; 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: 2015
In 2015, prices rose 0.1% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $996; the year's average CPI of 237.017 is the level
behind every 2015 figure on this page.
2015 was almost a year with no inflation at all. Consumer prices rose 0.1%,
the smallest increase since the 2009 decline, because energy prices kept
falling. Gasoline averaged $2.45 a gallon, down from $3.37 in 2014, and a
strong dollar made imported goods cheaper. The picture was different outside
food and energy: core prices rose about 1.8% as rents and medical costs
climbed.
Incomes finally showed real progress. Median household income reached $56,516,
a large jump from $53,657, and the median new home sold for about $296,400. The
federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25, and a first-class stamp stayed at 49
cents.
The Federal Reserve chose December to end its zero-rate policy, raising the
target range to 0.25–0.50% for the first time since 2006. It moved even
though headline inflation was far under 2%, arguing that the drag from
energy was temporary. Earlier, a currency shift in China in August had shaken
global markets and pushed oil below $40 a barrel. Prices in 2015 ended
the year barely above their 2014 level.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2015: $100 is worth $996 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2015/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2015. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2015/