$100 in 1913 is worth $1,973 in 2005,
because prices increased 1872.7% over that period, an average of
3.29% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$1,973
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1872.7%
Average inflation rate
3.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,973
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,873
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1913 → 2005
$1,973
$100 in 2005 → 1913
$5.07
What happened to prices between 1913 and 2005
Between 1913 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1872.7%, which works out to an average of
3.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2005: the 1913 dollar
lost 94.9% of its purchasing power over
these 92 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 2005 at the same ratio, 19.73: $1,000 becomes
$19,727, and $10,000 becomes $197,273.
Amount in 1913
Value in 2005
$1.00
$19.73
$5.00
$98.64
$10.00
$197
$20.00
$395
$50.00
$986
$100
$1,973
$500
$9,864
$1,000
$19,727
$5,000
$98,636
$10,000
$197,273
$100,000
$1,972,727
$1,000,000
$19,727,273
Inflation by spending category, 1913–2005
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.29%
$1,973
Food
3.26%
$1,907
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 2005
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 1913–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$1,973
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $292 by
1958, on its way to $1,973 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $1,973; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 2005: $100 is worth $1,973 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2005/