$100 in 1913 is worth $2,737 in 2021,
because prices increased 2637.1% over that period, an average of
3.11% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$2,737
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2637.1%
Average inflation rate
3.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,737
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,637
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1913 → 2021
$2,737
$100 in 2021 → 1913
$3.65
What happened to prices between 1913 and 2021
Between 1913 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2637.1%, which works out to an average of
3.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2021: the 1913 dollar
lost 96.3% of its purchasing power over
these 108 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 2021 at the same ratio, 27.37: $1,000 becomes
$27,371, and $10,000 becomes $273,707.
Amount in 1913
Value in 2021
$1.00
$27.37
$5.00
$137
$10.00
$274
$20.00
$547
$50.00
$1,369
$100
$2,737
$500
$13,685
$1,000
$27,371
$5,000
$136,854
$10,000
$273,707
$100,000
$2,737,071
$1,000,000
$27,370,707
Inflation by spending category, 1913–2021
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.11%
$2,737
Food
3.13%
$2,778
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 2021
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 1913–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$2,737
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $352 by
1968, on its way to $2,737 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $2,737; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 2021: $100 is worth $2,737 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2021/