$100 in 1914 is worth $171 in 1923,
because prices increased 71.0% over that period, an average of
6.14% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.0%
Average inflation rate
6.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1914 → 1923
$171
$100 in 1923 → 1914
$58.48
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1923
Between 1914 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.0%, which works out to an average of
6.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1923: the 1914 dollar
lost 41.5% of its purchasing power over
these 9 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 1923 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,710, and $10,000 becomes $17,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1923
$1.00
$1.71
$5.00
$8.55
$10.00
$17.10
$20.00
$34.20
$50.00
$85.50
$100
$171
$500
$855
$1,000
$1,710
$5,000
$8,550
$10,000
$17,100
$100,000
$171,000
$1,000,000
$1,710,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1923
Between 1914 and 1923, apparel rose the most, up 80.7%, while food rose the least, up 51.0%, against 71.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.14%
$171
Apparel
6.79%
$181
Food
4.68%
$151
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–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1923
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (5.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1923 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1923
-5.09%
-14.5%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $151 by
1918, on its way to $171 in 1923; 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.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $171; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1923: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1923/