$100 in 1914 is worth $139 in 1939,
because prices increased 39.0% over that period, an average of
1.33% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$139
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
39.0%
Average inflation rate
1.33% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$139
Price difference ($100 base)
$39.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1914 → 1939
$139
$100 in 1939 → 1914
$71.94
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1939
Between 1914 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 39.0%, which works out to an average of
1.33% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1939: the 1914 dollar
lost 28.1% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1939 at the same ratio, 1.39: $1,000 becomes
$1,390, and $10,000 becomes $13,900.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1939
$1.00
$1.39
$5.00
$6.95
$10.00
$13.90
$20.00
$27.80
$50.00
$69.50
$100
$139
$500
$695
$1,000
$1,390
$5,000
$6,950
$10,000
$13,900
$100,000
$139,000
$1,000,000
$1,390,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1939
Between 1914 and 1939, apparel rose the most, up 44.0%, while food rose the least, up 15.7%, against 39.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.33%
$139
Apparel
1.47%
$144
Food
0.58%
$116
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 1939
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1930s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1939 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
1930–1939
-2.02%
-16.8%
$139
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $177 by
1926, on its way to $139 in 1939; 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 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $139; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1939: $100 is worth $139 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1939/