$100 in 1914 is worth $173 in 1943,
because prices increased 73.0% over that period, an average of
1.91% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$173
in 1943
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
73.0%
Average inflation rate
1.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$173
Price difference ($100 base)
$73.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1943
17.3
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
$100 in 1914 → 1943
$173
$100 in 1943 → 1914
$57.80
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1943
Between 1914 and 1943, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 73.0%, which works out to an average of
1.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1943: the 1914 dollar
lost 42.2% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1943 at the same ratio, 1.73: $1,000 becomes
$1,730, and $10,000 becomes $17,300.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1943
$1.00
$1.73
$5.00
$8.65
$10.00
$17.30
$20.00
$34.60
$50.00
$86.50
$100
$173
$500
$865
$1,000
$1,730
$5,000
$8,650
$10,000
$17,300
$100,000
$173,000
$1,000,000
$1,730,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1943
Between 1914 and 1943, apparel rose the most, up 85.3%, while food rose the least, up 67.6%, against 73.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1943, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.91%
$173
Apparel
2.15%
$185
Food
1.80%
$168
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 1943
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 1914–1943 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
1940–1943
7.31%
23.6%
$173
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $171 by
1928, on its way to $173 in 1943; 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 1943, prices rose 6.1% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $173; the year's average CPI of 17.3 is the level
behind every 1943 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1943: $100 is worth $173 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1943/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1943. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1943/