$100 in 1914 is worth $180 in 1945,
because prices increased 80.0% over that period, an average of
1.91% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$180
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
80.0%
Average inflation rate
1.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$180
Price difference ($100 base)
$80.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1914 → 1945
$180
$100 in 1945 → 1914
$55.56
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1945
Between 1914 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 80.0%, which works out to an average of
1.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1945: the 1914 dollar
lost 44.4% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.80: $1,000 becomes
$1,800, and $10,000 becomes $18,000.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.80
$5.00
$9.00
$10.00
$18.00
$20.00
$36.00
$50.00
$90.00
$100
$180
$500
$900
$1,000
$1,800
$5,000
$9,000
$10,000
$18,000
$100,000
$180,000
$1,000,000
$1,800,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1945
Between 1914 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 109.3%, while food rose the least, up 69.6%, against 80.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.91%
$180
Apparel
2.41%
$209
Food
1.72%
$170
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 1945
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 1914–1945 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
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$180
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $167 by
1930, on its way to $180 in 1945; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1945
In 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $180; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1945: $100 is worth $180 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1945/