$100 in 1913 is worth $225 in 1947,
because prices increased 125.3% over that period, an average of
2.42% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$225
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
125.3%
Average inflation rate
2.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$225
Price difference ($100 base)
$125
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1913 → 1947
$225
$100 in 1947 → 1913
$44.39
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1947
Between 1913 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 125.3%, which works out to an average of
2.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.44 buys in 1947: the 1913 dollar
lost 55.6% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1947 at the same ratio, 2.25: $1,000 becomes
$2,253, and $10,000 becomes $22,525.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1947
$1.00
$2.25
$5.00
$11.26
$10.00
$22.53
$20.00
$45.05
$50.00
$113
$100
$225
$500
$1,126
$1,000
$2,253
$5,000
$11,263
$10,000
$22,525
$100,000
$225,253
$1,000,000
$2,252,525
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1947
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.42%
$225
Food
2.62%
$241
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 1947
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 1913–1947 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
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$225
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1929, on its way to $225 in 1947; 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: 1947
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $225; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1947: $100 is worth $225 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1947/