$100 in 1913 is worth $2,614 in 2020,
because prices increased 2514.3% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$2,614
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2514.3%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,614
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,514
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1913 → 2020
$2,614
$100 in 2020 → 1913
$3.83
What happened to prices between 1913 and 2020
Between 1913 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2514.3%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2020: the 1913 dollar
lost 96.2% of its purchasing power over
these 107 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 2020 at the same ratio, 26.14: $1,000 becomes
$26,143, and $10,000 becomes $261,425.
Amount in 1913
Value in 2020
$1.00
$26.14
$5.00
$131
$10.00
$261
$20.00
$523
$50.00
$1,307
$100
$2,614
$500
$13,071
$1,000
$26,143
$5,000
$130,713
$10,000
$261,425
$100,000
$2,614,253
$1,000,000
$26,142,525
Inflation by spending category, 1913–2020
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$2,614
Food
3.12%
$2,672
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 2020
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 1913–2020 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$2,203
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$2,614
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $352 by
1968, on its way to $2,614 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $2,614; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 2020: $100 is worth $2,614 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2020/