$100 in 1913 is worth $1,049 in 1984,
because prices increased 949.5% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,049
in 1984
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
949.5%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,049
Price difference ($100 base)
$949
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1984
103.9
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1984
4.32%
$100 in 1913 → 1984
$1,049
$100 in 1984 → 1913
$9.53
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1984
Between 1913 and 1984, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 103.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 949.5%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1984: the 1913 dollar
lost 90.5% of its purchasing power over
these 71 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 1984 at the same ratio, 10.49: $1,000 becomes
$10,495, and $10,000 becomes $104,949.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1984
$1.00
$10.49
$5.00
$52.47
$10.00
$105
$20.00
$210
$50.00
$525
$100
$1,049
$500
$5,247
$1,000
$10,495
$5,000
$52,475
$10,000
$104,949
$100,000
$1,049,495
$1,000,000
$10,494,949
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1984
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1984, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$1,049
Food
3.34%
$1,032
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 1984
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 1913–1984 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
1980–1984
5.97%
26.1%
$1,049
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $243 by
1948, on its way to $1,049 in 1984; 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: 1984
In 1984, prices rose 4.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,049; the year's average CPI of 103.9 is the level
behind every 1984 figure on this page.
1984 was the year the recovery became a boom. Real GDP grew 7.2%, the
fastest calendar-year growth since 1951, as the tax cuts passed in 1981
combined with falling interest rates and rebuilding consumer confidence.
Unemployment, which had topped 10.8% just two years earlier, fell below
7.5%. Inflation ticked up to 4.3% from 3.2% the year before, but nothing
close to a return of the 1970s wage-price spiral: the Federal Reserve under
Paul Volcker kept policy tight enough to hold the line while growth ran hot.
The strength of the expansion, branded “Morning in America” in President
Reagan’s reelection campaign, carried him to a 49-state landslide over
Walter Mondale that November, at the time the widest electoral-vote margin
in U.S. history. For households, the numbers behind the slogan were
concrete: median income rose to about $22,400, and a gallon of gas cost
$1.13, roughly what it had cost three years earlier even as wages kept
climbing. The contrast with 1980, when 13.5% inflation and interest rates
near 20% had defined the economy, could not have been sharper.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1984: $100 is worth $1,049 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1984/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1984. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1984/