$100 in 1913 is worth $176 in 1927,
because prices increased 75.8% over that period, an average of
4.11% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$176
in 1927
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.8%
Average inflation rate
4.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$176
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.76
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1927
17.4
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
$100 in 1913 → 1927
$176
$100 in 1927 → 1913
$56.90
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1927
Between 1913 and 1927, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 17.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.8%, which works out to an average of
4.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1927: the 1913 dollar
lost 43.1% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1927 at the same ratio, 1.76: $1,000 becomes
$1,758, and $10,000 becomes $17,576.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1927
$1.00
$1.76
$5.00
$8.79
$10.00
$17.58
$20.00
$35.15
$50.00
$87.88
$100
$176
$500
$879
$1,000
$1,758
$5,000
$8,788
$10,000
$17,576
$100,000
$175,758
$1,000,000
$1,757,576
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1927
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1927, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.11%
$176
Food
3.60%
$164
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 1927
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1927 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1927
-1.97%
-13.0%
$176
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $202 by
1920, on its way to $176 in 1927; 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 1927, prices fell 1.7% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $176; the year's average CPI of 17.4 is the level
behind every 1927 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1927: $100 is worth $176 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1927/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1927. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1927/