$100 in 1914 is worth $101 in 1915,
because prices increased 1.0% over that period, an average of
1.00% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$101
in 1915
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.0%
Average inflation rate
1.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$101
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1915
10.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
$100 in 1914 → 1915
$101
$100 in 1915 → 1914
$99.01
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1915
Between 1914 and 1915, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 10.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.0%, which works out to an average of
1.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.99 buys in 1915: the 1914 dollar
lost 1.0% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1915 at the same ratio, 1.01: $1,000 becomes
$1,010, and $10,000 becomes $10,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1915
$1.00
$1.01
$5.00
$5.05
$10.00
$10.10
$20.00
$20.20
$50.00
$50.50
$100
$101
$500
$505
$1,000
$1,010
$5,000
$5,050
$10,000
$10,100
$100,000
$101,000
$1,000,000
$1,010,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1915
Between 1914 and 1915, apparel rose the most, up 2.0%, while food fell 2.0%, against 1.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1915, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.00%
$101
Apparel
2.00%
$102
Food
-1.96%
$98.04
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914grew to $101 by 1915; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1915, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $101; the year's average CPI of 10.1 is the level
behind every 1915 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1915, the second straight year of near-flat
inflation before the wartime price surges of 1916 through 1918. The year’s
defining event had nothing to do with prices directly: a German submarine
sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast on May 7, killing 128
Americans and hardening U.S. opinion against Germany two years before the
country entered the war. Economically, 1915 was a turning point of a
different kind. A recession that had dragged on since 1913 began lifting as
Britain and France placed growing orders for steel, munitions, and other war
materiel with American manufacturers, and U.S. exports to the Allied powers
climbed sharply through the year. That demand would keep building through
1916, eventually pulling prices up with it. On the regulatory
side, the Federal Trade Commission opened for business in March, taking on
enforcement of the Clayton Antitrust Act that Congress had passed the
previous fall. A first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, unchanged since 1885
and still two years from its first wartime increase.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1915: $100 is worth $101 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1915/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1915. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1915/