$100 in 1913 is worth $422 in 1972,
because prices increased 322.2% over that period, an average of
2.47% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$422
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
322.2%
Average inflation rate
2.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$422
Price difference ($100 base)
$322
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1913 → 1972
$422
$100 in 1972 → 1913
$23.68
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1972
Between 1913 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 322.2%, which works out to an average of
2.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1972: the 1913 dollar
lost 76.3% of its purchasing power over
these 59 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 1972 at the same ratio, 4.22: $1,000 becomes
$4,222, and $10,000 becomes $42,222.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1972
$1.00
$4.22
$5.00
$21.11
$10.00
$42.22
$20.00
$84.44
$50.00
$211
$100
$422
$500
$2,111
$1,000
$4,222
$5,000
$21,111
$10,000
$42,222
$100,000
$422,222
$1,000,000
$4,222,222
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1972
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.47%
$422
Food
2.47%
$421
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 1972
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 1913–1972 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$392
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$422
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $175 by
1943, on its way to $422 in 1972; 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: 1972
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $422; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1972: $100 is worth $422 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1972/