$100 in 1913 is worth $1,253 in 1989,
because prices increased 1152.5% over that period, an average of
3.38% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,253
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1152.5%
Average inflation rate
3.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,253
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,153
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1913 → 1989
$1,253
$100 in 1989 → 1913
$7.98
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1989
Between 1913 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1152.5%, which works out to an average of
3.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.08 buys in 1989: the 1913 dollar
lost 92.0% of its purchasing power over
these 76 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 1989 at the same ratio, 12.53: $1,000 becomes
$12,525, and $10,000 becomes $125,253.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1989
$1.00
$12.53
$5.00
$62.63
$10.00
$125
$20.00
$251
$50.00
$626
$100
$1,253
$500
$6,263
$1,000
$12,525
$5,000
$62,626
$10,000
$125,253
$100,000
$1,252,525
$1,000,000
$12,525,253
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1989
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.38%
$1,253
Food
3.38%
$1,251
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 1989
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 1913–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$1,253
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $270 by
1953, on its way to $1,253 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,253; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1989: $100 is worth $1,253 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1989/