$100 in 1913 is worth $3,169 in 2024,
because prices increased 3068.6% over that period, an average of
3.16% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$3,169
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3068.6%
Average inflation rate
3.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$3,169
Price difference ($100 base)
$3,069
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1913 → 2024
$3,169
$100 in 2024 → 1913
$3.16
What happened to prices between 1913 and 2024
Between 1913 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3068.6%, which works out to an average of
3.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.03 buys in 2024: the 1913 dollar
lost 96.8% of its purchasing power over
these 111 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 2024 at the same ratio, 31.69: $1,000 becomes
$31,686, and $10,000 becomes $316,858.
Amount in 1913
Value in 2024
$1.00
$31.69
$5.00
$158
$10.00
$317
$20.00
$634
$50.00
$1,584
$100
$3,169
$500
$15,843
$1,000
$31,686
$5,000
$158,429
$10,000
$316,858
$100,000
$3,168,576
$1,000,000
$31,685,758
Inflation by spending category, 1913–2024
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.16%
$3,169
Food
3.20%
$3,303
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 2024
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 1913–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$3,169
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $352 by
1968, on its way to $3,169 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $3,169; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 2024: $100 is worth $3,169 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-2024/