$100 in 1913 is worth $1,859 in 2003,
because prices increased 1758.6% over that period, an average of
3.30% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,859
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1758.6%
Average inflation rate
3.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,859
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,759
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1913 → 2003
$1,859
$100 in 2003 → 1913
$5.38
What happened to prices between 1913 and 2003
Between 1913 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1758.6%, which works out to an average of
3.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2003: the 1913 dollar
lost 94.6% of its purchasing power over
these 90 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 2003 at the same ratio, 18.59: $1,000 becomes
$18,586, and $10,000 becomes $185,859.
Amount in 1913
Value in 2003
$1.00
$18.59
$5.00
$92.93
$10.00
$186
$20.00
$372
$50.00
$929
$100
$1,859
$500
$9,293
$1,000
$18,586
$5,000
$92,929
$10,000
$185,859
$100,000
$1,858,586
$1,000,000
$18,585,859
Inflation by spending category, 1913–2003
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.30%
$1,859
Food
3.26%
$1,800
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 2003
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 1913–2003 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,739
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,859
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $292 by
1958, on its way to $1,859 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,859; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,859 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2003/