$100 in 1913 is worth $178 in 1944,
because prices increased 77.8% over that period, an average of
1.87% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$178
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
77.8%
Average inflation rate
1.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$178
Price difference ($100 base)
$77.78
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1913 → 1944
$178
$100 in 1944 → 1913
$56.25
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1944
Between 1913 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 77.8%, which works out to an average of
1.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1944: the 1913 dollar
lost 43.8% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.78: $1,000 becomes
$1,778, and $10,000 becomes $17,778.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.78
$5.00
$8.89
$10.00
$17.78
$20.00
$35.56
$50.00
$88.89
$100
$178
$500
$889
$1,000
$1,778
$5,000
$8,889
$10,000
$17,778
$100,000
$177,778
$1,000,000
$1,777,778
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1944
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.87%
$178
Food
1.71%
$169
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 1944
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 1913–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$178
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1929, on its way to $178 in 1944; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1944
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $178; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1944: $100 is worth $178 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1944/