$100 in 1914 is worth $174 in 1927,
because prices increased 74.0% over that period, an average of
4.35% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1927
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.0%
Average inflation rate
4.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1927
17.4
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
$100 in 1914 → 1927
$174
$100 in 1927 → 1914
$57.47
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1927
Between 1914 and 1927, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.0%, which works out to an average of
4.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1927: the 1914 dollar
lost 42.5% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1927 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,740, and $10,000 becomes $17,400.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1927
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.70
$10.00
$17.40
$20.00
$34.80
$50.00
$87.00
$100
$174
$500
$870
$1,000
$1,740
$5,000
$8,700
$10,000
$17,400
$100,000
$174,000
$1,000,000
$1,740,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1927
Between 1914 and 1927, apparel rose the most, up 68.7%, while food rose the least, up 60.8%, against 74.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1927, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.35%
$174
Apparel
4.10%
$169
Food
3.72%
$161
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 1927
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 1914–1927 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1927
-1.97%
-13.0%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $200 by
1920, on its way to $174 in 1927; 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 1927, prices fell 1.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $174; the year's average CPI of 17.4 is the level
behind every 1927 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1927: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1927/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1927. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1927/