$100 in 1914 is worth $171 in 1929,
because prices increased 71.0% over that period, an average of
3.64% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$171
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
71.0%
Average inflation rate
3.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$171
Price difference ($100 base)
$71.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1914 → 1929
$171
$100 in 1929 → 1914
$58.48
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1929
Between 1914 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 71.0%, which works out to an average of
3.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1929: the 1914 dollar
lost 41.5% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1929 at the same ratio, 1.71: $1,000 becomes
$1,710, and $10,000 becomes $17,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1929
$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, 1914–1929
Between 1914 and 1929, apparel rose the most, up 64.7%, while food rose the least, up 61.8%, against 71.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.64%
$171
Apparel
3.38%
$165
Food
3.26%
$162
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 1929
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1929 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1929
-1.73%
-14.5%
$171
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $179 by
1921, on its way to $171 in 1929; 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 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $171; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1929 figure on this page.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1929: $100 is worth $171 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1929/