$100 in 1949 is worth $1,055 in 2018,
because prices increased 955.1% over that period, an average of
3.47% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$1,055
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
955.1%
Average inflation rate
3.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,055
Price difference ($100 base)
$955
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1949 → 2018
$1,055
$100 in 2018 → 1949
$9.48
What happened to prices between 1949 and 2018
Between 1949 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 955.1%, which works out to an average of
3.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2018: the 1949 dollar
lost 90.5% of its purchasing power over
these 69 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 2018 at the same ratio, 10.55: $1,000 becomes
$10,551, and $10,000 becomes $105,507.
Amount in 1949
Value in 2018
$1.00
$10.55
$5.00
$52.75
$10.00
$106
$20.00
$211
$50.00
$528
$100
$1,055
$500
$5,275
$1,000
$10,551
$5,000
$52,754
$10,000
$105,507
$100,000
$1,055,071
$1,000,000
$10,550,714
Inflation by spending category, 1949–2018
Between 1949 and 2018, medical care rose the most, up 3175.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 208.0%, against 955.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.47%
$1,055
Medical care
5.19%
$3,275
Food
3.41%
$1,014
Transportation
3.32%
$953
Apparel
1.64%
$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 2018
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 1949–2018 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
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$1,055
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $437 by
1984, on its way to $1,055 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $1,055; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 2018: $100 is worth $1,055 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-2018/