$100 in 1914 is worth $140 in 1940,
because prices increased 40.0% over that period, an average of
1.30% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$140
in 1940
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
40.0%
Average inflation rate
1.30% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$140
Price difference ($100 base)
$40.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1940
14
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
$100 in 1914 → 1940
$140
$100 in 1940 → 1914
$71.43
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1940
Between 1914 and 1940, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 14.
Cumulatively, prices increased 40.0%, which works out to an average of
1.30% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.71 buys in 1940: the 1914 dollar
lost 28.6% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1940 at the same ratio, 1.40: $1,000 becomes
$1,400, and $10,000 becomes $14,000.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1940
$1.00
$1.40
$5.00
$7.00
$10.00
$14.00
$20.00
$28.00
$50.00
$70.00
$100
$140
$500
$700
$1,000
$1,400
$5,000
$7,000
$10,000
$14,000
$100,000
$140,000
$1,000,000
$1,400,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1940
Between 1914 and 1940, apparel rose the most, up 45.3%, while food rose the least, up 17.6%, against 40.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1940, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.30%
$140
Apparel
1.45%
$145
Food
0.63%
$118
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 1940
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1940 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
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$140
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $174 by
1927, on its way to $140 in 1940; 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 1940, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $140; the year's average CPI of 14 is the level
behind every 1940 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1940, snapping 1939’s decline
and marking the first increase since 1937. The gain was modest, and the CPI
still stood 18.1% below its 1929 peak, a reminder of how far
the recovery from the Depression’s trough had left to go even as defense
orders from Britain and France began reaching American factories. War was
already reshaping domestic policy well before it touched American soil.
Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act that September, the
country’s first peacetime draft, requiring men aged 21 to 35 to register and
authorizing the induction of up to 900,000 men a year, more than a year
before Pearl Harbor. That November, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented
third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie after campaigning on
keeping the United States out of the war then consuming Europe and Asia. The
promise would not hold much longer: within two years, wartime demand would
push consumer prices up faster than at any point since the aftermath of
World War I. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the federal minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour, the level set the previous October under
the Fair Labor Standards Act.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1940: $100 is worth $140 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1940/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1940. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1940/