$100 in 1914 is worth $200 in 1920,
because prices increased 100.0% over that period, an average of
12.25% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$200
in 1920
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
100.0%
Average inflation rate
12.25% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$200
Price difference ($100 base)
$100
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1920
20
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
$100 in 1914 → 1920
$200
$100 in 1920 → 1914
$50.00
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1920
Between 1914 and 1920, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 20.
Cumulatively, prices increased 100.0%, which works out to an average of
12.25% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.50 buys in 1920: the 1914 dollar
lost 50.0% of its purchasing power over
these 6 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 1920 at the same ratio, 2.00: $1,000 becomes
$2,000, and $10,000 becomes $20,000.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1920
$1.00
$2.00
$5.00
$10.00
$10.00
$20.00
$20.00
$40.00
$50.00
$100
$100
$200
$500
$1,000
$1,000
$2,000
$5,000
$10,000
$10,000
$20,000
$100,000
$200,000
$1,000,000
$2,000,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1920
Between 1914 and 1920, apparel rose the most, up 187.3%, while food rose the least, up 105.9%, against 100.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1920, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
12.25%
$200
Apparel
19.23%
$287
Food
12.79%
$206
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 $128 by
1917, on its way to $200 in 1920; 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 1920, prices rose 15.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $200; the year's average CPI of 20 is the level
behind every 1920 figure on this page.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1920: $100 is worth $200 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1920/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1920. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1920/