$100 in 1913 is worth $1,460 in 1993,
because prices increased 1359.6% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,460
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1359.6%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,460
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,360
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1913 → 1993
$1,460
$100 in 1993 → 1913
$6.85
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1993
Between 1913 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1359.6%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.07 buys in 1993: the 1913 dollar
lost 93.1% of its purchasing power over
these 80 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 1993 at the same ratio, 14.60: $1,000 becomes
$14,596, and $10,000 becomes $145,960.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1993
$1.00
$14.60
$5.00
$72.98
$10.00
$146
$20.00
$292
$50.00
$730
$100
$1,460
$500
$7,298
$1,000
$14,596
$5,000
$72,980
$10,000
$145,960
$100,000
$1,459,596
$1,000,000
$14,595,960
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1993
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$1,460
Food
3.36%
$1,409
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 1993
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 1913–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$1,320
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$1,460
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $270 by
1953, on its way to $1,460 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,460; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1993: $100 is worth $1,460 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1993/