For an indicator of the changes in prices from the World War 2 era through today I pulled CPI information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This info will roll into my comments on the probate document for my grandfather’s estate.
It is also useful for general information.
The furthest into the table I can link is here: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?cu
The data is the CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) from 1940 through 2019 from Series Id: CUUR0000SA0.
Select data:
| Year | Jan | Jul | Oct |
| 1940 | 13.9 | 14.0 | 14.0 |
| 1941 | 14.1 | 14.7 | 15.3 |
| 1945 | 17.8 | 18.1 | 18.1 |
| 1946 | 18.2 | 19.8 | 20.8 |
| 1950 | 23.5 | 24.1 | 24.6 |
| 1960 | 29.3 | 29.6 | 29.8 |
| 1970 | 37.8 | 39.0 | 39.4 |
| 1980 | 77.8 | 82.7 | 84.8 |
| 1990 | 127.4 | 130.4 | 133.5 |
| 2000 | 168.8 | 172.8 | 174.0 |
| 2010 | 216.7 | 218.0 | 218.7 |
| 2019 | 251.7 | 256.6 | 257.3 |
For my future reference, that shows inflation on an nationwide basis for urban consumers calculated as follows:
| CPI index July 1946 | 19.8 |
| CPI index October 2019 | 257.3 |
| ratio | 12.997 |
| rounded | 13.000 |
The inflation was 1200% in that time frame, which means a basket of stuff costing $1.00 in July 1946 would have cost $13.00 in October 2019.