$100 in 1914 is worth $152 in 1931,
because prices increased 52.0% over that period, an average of
2.49% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$152
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
52.0%
Average inflation rate
2.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$152
Price difference ($100 base)
$52.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1914 → 1931
$152
$100 in 1931 → 1914
$65.79
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1931
Between 1914 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 52.0%, which works out to an average of
2.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.66 buys in 1931: the 1914 dollar
lost 34.2% of its purchasing power over
these 17 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 1931 at the same ratio, 1.52: $1,000 becomes
$1,520, and $10,000 becomes $15,200.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1931
$1.00
$1.52
$5.00
$7.60
$10.00
$15.20
$20.00
$30.40
$50.00
$76.00
$100
$152
$500
$760
$1,000
$1,520
$5,000
$7,600
$10,000
$15,200
$100,000
$152,000
$1,000,000
$1,520,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1931
Between 1914 and 1931, apparel rose the most, up 46.7%, while food rose the least, up 26.5%, against 52.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.49%
$152
Apparel
2.28%
$147
Food
1.39%
$126
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 1931
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1931 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$152
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $168 by
1922, on its way to $152 in 1931; 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 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $152; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1931: $100 is worth $152 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1931/