Many radio programs mention dollar values of things, whether it's the cost of a meal on a family show, a drink at a bar by Johnny Dollar or the inheritance one might collect through a nefarious act on The Whistler.
These are the numbers to multiply those dollar amounts by to find out what they would be today using the Consumer Price Index calculator at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to the July 2023 values for selected years. Take the year of the broadcast and use the multiplier to get a rough guess of today's value.
- 1942 18.6
- 1945 16.9
- 1947 13.8
- 1950 12.7
- 1952 11.5
- 1955 11.4
- 1957 10.8
- 1960 10.3
- 1962 10.1
In Suspense, The Ten Grand, Lucille Ball's character finds that someone dropped $10,000 into her purse! Ten grand is a lot -- but to the listener at that time they would have been floored by that kind of money. That would be almost $170,000 in today's money!
In Casey, Crime Photographer, writer Alonzo Deen Cole often created values of thefts that seem small for today's listening, but were really massive to help capture and hold the attention of the listener.
John Abbott's Johnny Dollar books have tables showing a more current value of his expense accounts -- our favorite expense account padder had a reputation that was well-deserved... and that was before airline mileage points and credit cards that would have added to his expense account rewards.
