$100 in 1913 is worth $1,087 in 1985,
because prices increased 986.9% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,087
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
986.9%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,087
Price difference ($100 base)
$987
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1913 → 1985
$1,087
$100 in 1985 → 1913
$9.20
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1985
Between 1913 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 986.9%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1985: the 1913 dollar
lost 90.8% of its purchasing power over
these 72 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 1985 at the same ratio, 10.87: $1,000 becomes
$10,869, and $10,000 becomes $108,687.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1985
$1.00
$10.87
$5.00
$54.34
$10.00
$109
$20.00
$217
$50.00
$543
$100
$1,087
$500
$5,434
$1,000
$10,869
$5,000
$54,343
$10,000
$108,687
$100,000
$1,086,869
$1,000,000
$10,868,687
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1985
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$1,087
Food
3.33%
$1,056
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 1985
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 1913–1985 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
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$1,087
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $243 by
1948, on its way to $1,087 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,087; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1985: $100 is worth $1,087 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1985/