$100 in 1913 is worth $141 in 1940,
because prices increased 41.4% over that period, an average of
1.29% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$141
in 1940
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
41.4%
Average inflation rate
1.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$141
Price difference ($100 base)
$41.41
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1940
14
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
$100 in 1913 → 1940
$141
$100 in 1940 → 1913
$70.71
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1940
Between 1913 and 1940, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 14.
Cumulatively, prices increased 41.4%, which works out to an average of
1.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1940: the 1913 dollar
lost 29.3% of its purchasing power over
these 27 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 1940 at the same ratio, 1.41: $1,000 becomes
$1,414, and $10,000 becomes $14,141.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1940
$1.00
$1.41
$5.00
$7.07
$10.00
$14.14
$20.00
$28.28
$50.00
$70.71
$100
$141
$500
$707
$1,000
$1,414
$5,000
$7,071
$10,000
$14,141
$100,000
$141,414
$1,000,000
$1,414,141
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1940
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1940, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.29%
$141
Food
0.68%
$120
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 1940
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1940 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
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$141
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $179 by
1926, on its way to $141 in 1940; 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 1940, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $141; the year's average CPI of 14 is the level
behind every 1940 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1940, snapping 1939’s decline
and marking the first increase since 1937. The gain was modest, and the CPI
still stood 18.1% below its 1929 peak, a reminder of how far
the recovery from the Depression’s trough had left to go even as defense
orders from Britain and France began reaching American factories. War was
already reshaping domestic policy well before it touched American soil.
Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act that September, the
country’s first peacetime draft, requiring men aged 21 to 35 to register and
authorizing the induction of up to 900,000 men a year, more than a year
before Pearl Harbor. That November, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented
third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie after campaigning on
keeping the United States out of the war then consuming Europe and Asia. The
promise would not hold much longer: within two years, wartime demand would
push consumer prices up faster than at any point since the aftermath of
World War I. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the federal minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour, the level set the previous October under
the Fair Labor Standards Act.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1940: $100 is worth $141 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1940/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1940. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1940/