$100 in 1913 is worth $318 in 1965,
because prices increased 218.2% over that period, an average of
2.25% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$318
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
218.2%
Average inflation rate
2.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$318
Price difference ($100 base)
$218
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1913 → 1965
$318
$100 in 1965 → 1913
$31.43
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1965
Between 1913 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 218.2%, which works out to an average of
2.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.31 buys in 1965: the 1913 dollar
lost 68.6% of its purchasing power over
these 52 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 1965 at the same ratio, 3.18: $1,000 becomes
$3,182, and $10,000 becomes $31,818.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1965
$1.00
$3.18
$5.00
$15.91
$10.00
$31.82
$20.00
$63.64
$50.00
$159
$100
$318
$500
$1,591
$1,000
$3,182
$5,000
$15,909
$10,000
$31,818
$100,000
$318,182
$1,000,000
$3,181,818
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1965
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.25%
$318
Food
2.27%
$322
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 1965
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 1913–1965 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$299
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$318
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $140 by
1939, on its way to $318 in 1965; 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: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $318; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1965: $100 is worth $318 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1965/