$100 in 1914 is worth $176 in 1944,
because prices increased 76.0% over that period, an average of
1.90% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$176
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
76.0%
Average inflation rate
1.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$176
Price difference ($100 base)
$76.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1914 → 1944
$176
$100 in 1944 → 1914
$56.82
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1944
Between 1914 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 76.0%, which works out to an average of
1.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1944: the 1914 dollar
lost 43.2% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.76: $1,000 becomes
$1,760, and $10,000 becomes $17,600.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.76
$5.00
$8.80
$10.00
$17.60
$20.00
$35.20
$50.00
$88.00
$100
$176
$500
$880
$1,000
$1,760
$5,000
$8,800
$10,000
$17,600
$100,000
$176,000
$1,000,000
$1,760,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1944
Between 1914 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 98.7%, while food rose the least, up 65.7%, against 76.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.90%
$176
Apparel
2.31%
$199
Food
1.70%
$166
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 1944
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 1914–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$176
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $171 by
1929, on its way to $176 in 1944; 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 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $176; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1944: $100 is worth $176 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1944/