$100 in 1913 is worth $733 in 1979,
because prices increased 633.3% over that period, an average of
3.06% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$733
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
633.3%
Average inflation rate
3.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$733
Price difference ($100 base)
$633
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1913 → 1979
$733
$100 in 1979 → 1913
$13.64
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1979
Between 1913 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 633.3%, which works out to an average of
3.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1979: the 1913 dollar
lost 86.4% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 1979 at the same ratio, 7.33: $1,000 becomes
$7,333, and $10,000 becomes $73,333.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1979
$1.00
$7.33
$5.00
$36.67
$10.00
$73.33
$20.00
$147
$50.00
$367
$100
$733
$500
$3,667
$1,000
$7,333
$5,000
$36,667
$10,000
$73,333
$100,000
$733,333
$1,000,000
$7,333,333
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1979
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.06%
$733
Food
3.20%
$799
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 1979
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 1913–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$733
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $243 by
1948, on its way to $733 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $733; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1979: $100 is worth $733 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1979/