$100 in 1913 is worth $101 in 1914,
because prices increased 1.0% over that period, an average of
1.01% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1914
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.0%
Average inflation rate
1.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.01
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1914
10
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
$100 in 1913 → 1914
$101
$100 in 1914 → 1913
$99.00
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1914
Between 1913 and 1914, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 10.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.0%, which works out to an average of
1.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1914: the 1913 dollar
lost 1.0% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1914 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,010, and $10,000 becomes $10,101.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1914
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.05
$10.00
$10.10
$20.00
$20.20
$50.00
$50.51
$100
$101
$500
$505
$1,000
$1,010
$5,000
$5,051
$10,000
$10,101
$100,000
$101,010
$1,000,000
$1,010,101
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1914
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1914, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.01%
$101
Food
2.00%
$102
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913grew to $101 by 1914; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1914, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $101; the year's average CPI of 10 is the level
behind every 1914 figure on this page.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1914: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1914/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1914. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1914/