$100 in 1945 is worth $3,731.25 in 2021

Buying power of $100 in 1945

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $100 in 1945 (price index tracking began in 1922).

For example, if you started with $100, you would need to end with $3,731.25 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $100 is equivalent to $3,731.25 over time, that means that the "real value" of a single Australian dollar decreases over time. In other words, a dollar will pay for fewer items at the store.

This effect explains how inflation erodes the value of a dollar over time. By calculating the value in 1945 dollars, the chart below shows how $100 is worth less over 76 years.

According to the Bureau of Statistics, each of these AUD amounts below is equal in terms of what it could buy at the time:

This conversion table shows various other 1945 amounts in 2021 dollars, based on the 3,631.25% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for $100, 1945 to 2021

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1945 and 2021:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The Australian CPI was 3.2 in the year 1945 and 119.4 in 2021:

$100 in 1945 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $3,731.25 in 2021.

To get the total inflation rate for the 76 years between 1945 and 2021, we use the following formula:

Plugging in the values to this equation, we get:

Data source & citation

Raw data for these calculations comes from the government of Australia's annual (CPI) as provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia. The consumer price index was established in 1922 and is tracked by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

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