$100 in 1913 is worth $140 in 1936,
because prices increased 40.4% over that period, an average of
1.49% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$140
in 1936
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
40.4%
Average inflation rate
1.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$140
Price difference ($100 base)
$40.40
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1936
13.9
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
$100 in 1913 → 1936
$140
$100 in 1936 → 1913
$71.22
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1936
Between 1913 and 1936, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 40.4%, which works out to an average of
1.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1936: the 1913 dollar
lost 28.8% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1936 at the same ratio, 1.40: $1,000 becomes
$1,404, and $10,000 becomes $14,040.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1936
$1.00
$1.40
$5.00
$7.02
$10.00
$14.04
$20.00
$28.08
$50.00
$70.20
$100
$140
$500
$702
$1,000
$1,404
$5,000
$7,020
$10,000
$14,040
$100,000
$140,404
$1,000,000
$1,404,040
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1936
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1936, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.49%
$140
Food
1.01%
$126
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 1936
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1930s (3.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1936 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
1930–1936
-3.01%
-16.8%
$140
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1924, on its way to $140 in 1936; 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 1936, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $140; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1936 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1936: $100 is worth $140 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1936/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1936. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1936/