$100 in 1913 is worth $1,006 in 1983,
because prices increased 906.1% over that period, an average of
3.35% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,006
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
906.1%
Average inflation rate
3.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,006
Price difference ($100 base)
$906
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1913 → 1983
$1,006
$100 in 1983 → 1913
$9.94
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1983
Between 1913 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 906.1%, which works out to an average of
3.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1983: the 1913 dollar
lost 90.1% of its purchasing power over
these 70 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 1983 at the same ratio, 10.06: $1,000 becomes
$10,061, and $10,000 becomes $100,606.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1983
$1.00
$10.06
$5.00
$50.30
$10.00
$101
$20.00
$201
$50.00
$503
$100
$1,006
$500
$5,030
$1,000
$10,061
$5,000
$50,303
$10,000
$100,606
$100,000
$1,006,061
$1,000,000
$10,060,606
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1983
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.35%
$1,006
Food
3.34%
$994
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 1983
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 1913–1983 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$832
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$1,006
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $243 by
1948, on its way to $1,006 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,006; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1983: $100 is worth $1,006 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1983/