$100 in 1914 is worth $151 in 1918,
because prices increased 51.0% over that period, an average of
10.85% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$151
in 1918
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
51.0%
Average inflation rate
10.85% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$151
Price difference ($100 base)
$51.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1918
15.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
$100 in 1914 → 1918
$151
$100 in 1918 → 1914
$66.23
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1918
Between 1914 and 1918, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 15.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 51.0%, which works out to an average of
10.85% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1918: the 1914 dollar
lost 33.8% of its purchasing power over
these 4 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 1918 at the same ratio, 1.51: $1,000 becomes
$1,510, and $10,000 becomes $15,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1918
$1.00
$1.51
$5.00
$7.55
$10.00
$15.10
$20.00
$30.20
$50.00
$75.50
$100
$151
$500
$755
$1,000
$1,510
$5,000
$7,550
$10,000
$15,100
$100,000
$151,000
$1,000,000
$1,510,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1918
Between 1914 and 1918, apparel rose the most, up 82.0%, while food rose the least, up 63.7%, against 51.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1918, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
10.85%
$151
Apparel
16.15%
$182
Food
13.12%
$164
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 $109 by
1916, on its way to $151 in 1918; 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 the smallest rise was 1.0% in 1915.
In 1918, prices rose 18.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $151; the year's average CPI of 15.1 is the level
behind every 1918 figure on this page.
1918 brought the steepest annual price increase the CPI had recorded:
consumer prices rose 18.0% for the year, edging out 1917’s already sharp
17.4% as the economy stayed at full wartime mobilization for most of the
year. A first-class stamp cost 3 cents, up from 2 cents the previous
November under the War Revenue Act’s wartime tax increases. The war itself
ended on November 11, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allied
powers after more than four years of fighting in Europe, but the inflation
built up over a year and a half of mobilization did not disappear along with
the fighting. The bigger public health story that year was the influenza
pandemic that reached the U.S. in a mild spring wave and then returned that
fall in a far deadlier form, eventually killing roughly 675,000 Americans,
more than the country’s combat losses in the war. It hit factories, docks,
and shops alongside households, adding disruption to an economy already
strained by wartime demand. Prices would keep climbing even after the
armistice, into the postwar surge of 1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1918: $100 is worth $151 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1918/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1918. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1918/