$100 in 1914 is worth $128 in 1917,
because prices increased 28.0% over that period, an average of
8.58% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1917
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
28.0%
Average inflation rate
8.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$28.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1917
12.8
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1917
17.43%
$100 in 1914 → 1917
$128
$100 in 1917 → 1914
$78.13
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1917
Between 1914 and 1917, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 12.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 28.0%, which works out to an average of
8.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1917: the 1914 dollar
lost 21.9% of its purchasing power over
these 3 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 1917 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,280, and $10,000 becomes $12,800.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1917
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.40
$10.00
$12.80
$20.00
$25.60
$50.00
$64.00
$100
$128
$500
$640
$1,000
$1,280
$5,000
$6,400
$10,000
$12,800
$100,000
$128,000
$1,000,000
$1,280,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1917
Between 1914 and 1917, food rose the most, up 42.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 34.7%, against 28.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1917, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
8.58%
$128
Food
12.44%
$142
Apparel
10.43%
$135
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 1914 had already become $101 by
1915, on its way to $128 in 1917; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 17.4% in 1917, and the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1915.
In 1917, prices rose 17.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $128; the year's average CPI of 12.8 is the level
behind every 1917 figure on this page.
1917 is when World War I inflation stopped being a background trend and
became the dominant fact of American economic life. Consumer prices rose
17.4% for the year, more than double the previous year’s already sharp
increase, as the country’s April 6 entry into the war layered federal war
spending on top of an economy already strained by military demand and
worker shortages. Congress paid for the war with the War Revenue Act that
October, which sharply raised income taxes, created a new tax on wartime
business profits, and, in a small but very visible change for ordinary
households, raised the cost of a first-class stamp from 2 cents to 3 cents
that November, the rate’s first move since 1885. Herbert Hoover took over
the new Food Administration in August and asked Americans to conserve food
voluntarily rather than face formal rationing, a campaign that became
famous enough that “Hooverize” entered the language as a verb for cutting
back. None of it slowed prices much: the 17.4% increase would be topped
again the very next year, in 1918.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1917: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1917/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1917. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1917/