$100 in 1913 is worth $177 in 1925,
because prices increased 76.8% over that period, an average of
4.86% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$177
in 1925
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
76.8%
Average inflation rate
4.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$177
Price difference ($100 base)
$76.77
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1925
17.5
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
$100 in 1913 → 1925
$177
$100 in 1925 → 1913
$56.57
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1925
Between 1913 and 1925, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 17.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 76.8%, which works out to an average of
4.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1925: the 1913 dollar
lost 43.4% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1925 at the same ratio, 1.77: $1,000 becomes
$1,768, and $10,000 becomes $17,677.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1925
$1.00
$1.77
$5.00
$8.84
$10.00
$17.68
$20.00
$35.35
$50.00
$88.38
$100
$177
$500
$884
$1,000
$1,768
$5,000
$8,838
$10,000
$17,677
$100,000
$176,768
$1,000,000
$1,767,677
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1925
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1925, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.86%
$177
Food
4.26%
$165
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–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1925
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.6% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1925 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1925
-2.64%
-12.5%
$177
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $175 by
1919, on its way to $177 in 1925; 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 prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1925, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $177; the year's average CPI of 17.5 is the level
behind every 1925 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1925: $100 is worth $177 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1925/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1925. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1925/