Inflation calculator

What is $100 from 1950 worth today?

The answer

$1,400.03

in September 2026 dollars

$100 in 1950 buys about as much as $1,400.03 in September 2026.

  • Prices are 14 times as high as in 1950: they have risen 1,300%.
  • That's an average inflation rate of 3.5% a year.
  • It takes $14.00 in September 2026 to buy what $1 bought in 1950, and $1 today buys what $0.07 did then.

Then vs. now

  • Rent: 15 times as high in September 2026 as in 1950, while all prices are 14 times as high. See the chart

Each figure comes from its chart's source: the year's average price in dollars of the day, and what that is in today's dollars. Rent is BLS's index of what the same homes rent for, so it shows how much rents rose, not the average rent.

Share or cite this answer

Cite as: “$100 in 1950 buys about as much as $1,400.03 in September 2026.” Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U, all items), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/inflation-calculator/100-dollars-in-1950), data as of September 30, 2026.

Try another amount or year

$100 in other years

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Other amounts in 1950

$1 · $5 · $10 · $20 · $50 · $1,000 · $10,000

Source and date

Source
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U, all items)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
The numbers
Consumer prices since 1913

The calculator uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), which BLS has measured every month since 1913. A year's prices are the average of its months (for 2026, the months so far), and today's are those of September 2026, the newest month BLS has published. The index tracks what city households pay for a typical basket of goods and services, so any one thing you buy may have risen faster or slower. It updates itself when BLS publishes a new month.