$100 in 1913 is worth $175 in 1943,
because prices increased 74.7% over that period, an average of
1.88% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1943
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.7%
Average inflation rate
1.88% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.75
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1943
17.3
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
$100 in 1913 → 1943
$175
$100 in 1943 → 1913
$57.23
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1943
Between 1913 and 1943, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 17.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.7%, which works out to an average of
1.88% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1943: the 1913 dollar
lost 42.8% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1943 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,747, and $10,000 becomes $17,475.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1943
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.74
$10.00
$17.47
$20.00
$34.95
$50.00
$87.37
$100
$175
$500
$874
$1,000
$1,747
$5,000
$8,737
$10,000
$17,475
$100,000
$174,747
$1,000,000
$1,747,475
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1943
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1943, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.88%
$175
Food
1.80%
$171
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 1943
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 1913–1943 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
1940–1943
7.31%
23.6%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1928, on its way to $175 in 1943; 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 1943, prices rose 6.1% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $175; the year's average CPI of 17.3 is the level
behind every 1943 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1943: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1943/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1943. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1943/