The value of money
What is money from 1940 worth today?
Measured by U.S. consumer prices, a dollar from January 1940 takes 24.10 dollars to match today. Below, the standard amounts — and what they bought at the time.
1940 amounts, in today’s money
$1.00$24.10
$10.00$241
$100$2,410
$1,000$24,099
$10,000$240,993
$100,000$2,409,928
CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted · January 1940 to August 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Had $10,000 been invested in 1940 instead
A different question again: not what money could buy, but what it would have become. Equity figures include reinvested dividends.
U.S. Large-Cap Equity Composite (total return)observation June 2026 · Robert J. Shiller, Yale University$110,045,525