$100 in 1913 is worth $153 in 1918,
because prices increased 52.5% over that period, an average of
8.81% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1918
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.5%
Average inflation rate
8.81% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.53
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1918
15.1
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
$100 in 1913 → 1918
$153
$100 in 1918 → 1913
$65.56
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1918
Between 1913 and 1918, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 15.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.5%, which works out to an average of
8.81% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1918: the 1913 dollar
lost 34.4% of its purchasing power over
these 5 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 1918 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,525, and $10,000 becomes $15,253.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1918
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.63
$10.00
$15.25
$20.00
$30.51
$50.00
$76.26
$100
$153
$500
$763
$1,000
$1,525
$5,000
$7,626
$10,000
$15,253
$100,000
$152,525
$1,000,000
$1,525,253
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1918
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1918, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
8.81%
$153
Food
10.80%
$167
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 $153 in 1918; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1915.
In 1918, prices rose 18.0% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $153; the year's average CPI of 15.1 is the level
behind every 1918 figure on this page.
1918 brought the steepest annual price increase the CPI had recorded:
consumer prices rose 18.0% for the year, edging out 1917’s already sharp
17.4% as the economy stayed at full wartime mobilization for most of the
year. A first-class stamp cost 3 cents, up from 2 cents the previous
November under the War Revenue Act’s wartime tax increases. The war itself
ended on November 11, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allied
powers after more than four years of fighting in Europe, but the inflation
built up over a year and a half of mobilization did not disappear along with
the fighting. The bigger public health story that year was the influenza
pandemic that reached the U.S. in a mild spring wave and then returned that
fall in a far deadlier form, eventually killing roughly 675,000 Americans,
more than the country’s combat losses in the war. It hit factories, docks,
and shops alongside households, adding disruption to an economy already
strained by wartime demand. Prices would keep climbing even after the
armistice, into the postwar surge of 1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1918: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1918/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1918. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1918/