$100 in 1913 is worth $197 in 1946,
because prices increased 97.0% over that period, an average of
2.08% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$197
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
97.0%
Average inflation rate
2.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$197
Price difference ($100 base)
$96.97
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1913 → 1946
$197
$100 in 1946 → 1913
$50.77
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1946
Between 1913 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 97.0%, which works out to an average of
2.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1946: the 1913 dollar
lost 49.2% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.97: $1,000 becomes
$1,970, and $10,000 becomes $19,697.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.97
$5.00
$9.85
$10.00
$19.70
$20.00
$39.39
$50.00
$98.48
$100
$197
$500
$985
$1,000
$1,970
$5,000
$9,848
$10,000
$19,697
$100,000
$196,970
$1,000,000
$1,969,697
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1946
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.08%
$197
Food
2.09%
$198
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 1946
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 1913–1946 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
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$197
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1929, on its way to $197 in 1946; 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: 1946
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $197; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1946: $100 is worth $197 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1946/