$100 in 1913 is worth $270 in 1953,
because prices increased 169.7% over that period, an average of
2.51% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$270
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
169.7%
Average inflation rate
2.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$270
Price difference ($100 base)
$170
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1913 → 1953
$270
$100 in 1953 → 1913
$37.08
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1953
Between 1913 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 169.7%, which works out to an average of
2.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.37 buys in 1953: the 1913 dollar
lost 62.9% of its purchasing power over
these 40 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 1953 at the same ratio, 2.70: $1,000 becomes
$2,697, and $10,000 becomes $26,970.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1953
$1.00
$2.70
$5.00
$13.48
$10.00
$26.97
$20.00
$53.94
$50.00
$135
$100
$270
$500
$1,348
$1,000
$2,697
$5,000
$13,485
$10,000
$26,970
$100,000
$269,697
$1,000,000
$2,696,970
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1953
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.51%
$270
Food
2.63%
$283
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 1953
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 1913–1953 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$243
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$270
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $131 by
1933, on its way to $270 in 1953; 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: 1953
In 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $270; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1953: $100 is worth $270 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1953/