$100 in 1913 is worth $659 in 1978,
because prices increased 558.6% over that period, an average of
2.94% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$659
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
558.6%
Average inflation rate
2.94% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$659
Price difference ($100 base)
$559
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1913 → 1978
$659
$100 in 1978 → 1913
$15.18
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1978
Between 1913 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 558.6%, which works out to an average of
2.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1978: the 1913 dollar
lost 84.8% of its purchasing power over
these 65 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 1978 at the same ratio, 6.59: $1,000 becomes
$6,586, and $10,000 becomes $65,859.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1978
$1.00
$6.59
$5.00
$32.93
$10.00
$65.86
$20.00
$132
$50.00
$329
$100
$659
$500
$3,293
$1,000
$6,586
$5,000
$32,929
$10,000
$65,859
$100,000
$658,586
$1,000,000
$6,585,859
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1978
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.94%
$659
Food
3.08%
$720
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 1978
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 1913–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$659
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $175 by
1943, on its way to $659 in 1978; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $659; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1978: $100 is worth $659 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1978/