$100 in 1913 is worth $129 in 1917,
because prices increased 29.3% over that period, an average of
6.63% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$129
in 1917
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
29.3%
Average inflation rate
6.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$129
Price difference ($100 base)
$29.29
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1917
12.8
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1917
17.43%
$100 in 1913 → 1917
$129
$100 in 1917 → 1913
$77.34
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1917
Between 1913 and 1917, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 12.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 29.3%, which works out to an average of
6.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1917: the 1913 dollar
lost 22.7% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1917 at the same ratio, 1.29: $1,000 becomes
$1,293, and $10,000 becomes $12,929.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1917
$1.00
$1.29
$5.00
$6.46
$10.00
$12.93
$20.00
$25.86
$50.00
$64.65
$100
$129
$500
$646
$1,000
$1,293
$5,000
$6,465
$10,000
$12,929
$100,000
$129,293
$1,000,000
$1,292,929
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1917
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1917, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.63%
$129
Food
9.73%
$145
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 1913 had already become $102 by
1915, on its way to $129 in 1917; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 17.4% in 1917, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1915.
In 1917, prices rose 17.4% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $129; the year's average CPI of 12.8 is the level
behind every 1917 figure on this page.
1917 is when World War I inflation stopped being a background trend and
became the dominant fact of American economic life. Consumer prices rose
17.4% for the year, more than double the previous year’s already sharp
increase, as the country’s April 6 entry into the war layered federal war
spending on top of an economy already strained by military demand and
worker shortages. Congress paid for the war with the War Revenue Act that
October, which sharply raised income taxes, created a new tax on wartime
business profits, and, in a small but very visible change for ordinary
households, raised the cost of a first-class stamp from 2 cents to 3 cents
that November, the rate’s first move since 1885. Herbert Hoover took over
the new Food Administration in August and asked Americans to conserve food
voluntarily rather than face formal rationing, a campaign that became
famous enough that “Hooverize” entered the language as a verb for cutting
back. None of it slowed prices much: the 17.4% increase would be topped
again the very next year, in 1918.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1917: $100 is worth $129 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1917/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1917. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1917/