$100 in 1913 is worth $131 in 1933,
because prices increased 31.3% over that period, an average of
1.37% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$131
in 1933
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
31.3%
Average inflation rate
1.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$131
Price difference ($100 base)
$31.31
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1933
13
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
$100 in 1913 → 1933
$131
$100 in 1933 → 1913
$76.15
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1933
Between 1913 and 1933, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 13.
Cumulatively, prices increased 31.3%, which works out to an average of
1.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.76 buys in 1933: the 1913 dollar
lost 23.8% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1933 at the same ratio, 1.31: $1,000 becomes
$1,313, and $10,000 becomes $13,131.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1933
$1.00
$1.31
$5.00
$6.57
$10.00
$13.13
$20.00
$26.26
$50.00
$65.66
$100
$131
$500
$657
$1,000
$1,313
$5,000
$6,566
$10,000
$13,131
$100,000
$131,313
$1,000,000
$1,313,131
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1933
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1933, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.37%
$131
Food
0.20%
$104
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 1933
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1930s (8.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1933 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1933
-8.01%
-22.2%
$131
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1923, on its way to $131 in 1933; 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 1933, prices fell 5.1% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $131; the year's average CPI of 13 is the level
behind every 1933 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1933: $100 is worth $131 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1933/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1933. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1933/