$100 in 1914 is worth $177 in 1926,
because prices increased 77.0% over that period, an average of
4.87% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$177
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
77.0%
Average inflation rate
4.87% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$177
Price difference ($100 base)
$77.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1914 → 1926
$177
$100 in 1926 → 1914
$56.50
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1926
Between 1914 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 77.0%, which works out to an average of
4.87% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1926: the 1914 dollar
lost 43.5% of its purchasing power over
these 12 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 1926 at the same ratio, 1.77: $1,000 becomes
$1,770, and $10,000 becomes $17,700.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1926
$1.00
$1.77
$5.00
$8.85
$10.00
$17.70
$20.00
$35.40
$50.00
$88.50
$100
$177
$500
$885
$1,000
$1,770
$5,000
$8,850
$10,000
$17,700
$100,000
$177,000
$1,000,000
$1,770,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1926
Between 1914 and 1926, apparel rose the most, up 72.7%, while food rose the least, up 66.7%, against 77.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.87%
$177
Apparel
4.66%
$173
Food
4.35%
$167
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 1926
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1926 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1926
-2.02%
-11.5%
$177
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $200 by
1920, on its way to $177 in 1926; 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 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $177; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1926: $100 is worth $177 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1926/