$100 in 1949 is worth $1,030 in 2017,
because prices increased 929.9% over that period, an average of
3.49% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$1,030
in 2017
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
929.9%
Average inflation rate
3.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,030
Price difference ($100 base)
$930
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2017
245.12
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2017
2.13%
$100 in 1949 → 2017
$1,030
$100 in 2017 → 1949
$9.71
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2017
Between 1949 and 2017, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 245.12.
Cumulatively, prices increased 929.9%, which works out to an average of
3.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2017: the 1949 dollar
lost 90.3% of its purchasing power over
these 68 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 2017 at the same ratio, 10.30: $1,000 becomes
$10,299, and $10,000 becomes $102,992.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2017
$1.00
$10.30
$5.00
$51.50
$10.00
$103
$20.00
$206
$50.00
$515
$100
$1,030
$500
$5,150
$1,000
$10,299
$5,000
$51,496
$10,000
$102,992
$100,000
$1,029,916
$1,000,000
$10,299,160
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2017
Between 1949 and 2017, medical care rose the most, up 3111.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 207.9%, against 929.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2017, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.49%
$1,030
Medical care
5.23%
$3,212
Food
3.44%
$1,000
Transportation
3.30%
$912
Apparel
1.67%
$308
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 2017
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 1949–2017 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
2010–2017
1.69%
12.4%
$1,030
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $437 by
1984, on its way to $1,030 in 2017; 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: 2017
In 2017, prices rose 2.1% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $1,030; the year's average CPI of 245.12 is the level
behind every 2017 figure on this page.
2017 pushed consumer prices back above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The
CPI rose 2.1%, the first reading over 2% in five years, helped by a rebound
in energy after OPEC’s output cuts and by a storm-related spike at the pump:
Hurricane Harvey shut a large part of Gulf Coast refining in late August.
Gasoline averaged $2.42 a gallon, up from $2.14 in 2016.
Household incomes kept rising. The median household income reached $61,372,
and the median new home sold for about $322,100. The federal minimum wage
stayed at $7.25, its eighth year at that level, and a first-class stamp rose
to 49 cents.
The Fed raised rates three times, to 1.25–1.50%, and in October began
letting its bond holdings shrink. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
in December, lowering the corporate rate to 21%. Even with unemployment near
4%, core inflation stayed under 2%, a puzzle that shaped Fed debates for the
next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2017: $100 is worth $1,030 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2017/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2017. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2017/