$100 in 1914 is worth $195 in 1946,
because prices increased 95.0% over that period, an average of
2.11% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$195
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
95.0%
Average inflation rate
2.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$195
Price difference ($100 base)
$95.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1914 → 1946
$195
$100 in 1946 → 1914
$51.28
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1946
Between 1914 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 95.0%, which works out to an average of
2.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.51 buys in 1946: the 1914 dollar
lost 48.7% of its purchasing power over
these 32 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.95: $1,000 becomes
$1,950, and $10,000 becomes $19,500.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.95
$5.00
$9.75
$10.00
$19.50
$20.00
$39.00
$50.00
$97.50
$100
$195
$500
$975
$1,000
$1,950
$5,000
$9,750
$10,000
$19,500
$100,000
$195,000
$1,000,000
$1,950,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1946
Between 1914 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 129.3%, while food rose the least, up 94.1%, against 95.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.11%
$195
Apparel
2.63%
$229
Food
2.09%
$194
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 1946
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 1914–1946 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
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$195
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $167 by
1930, on its way to $195 in 1946; 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: 1946
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $195; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1946: $100 is worth $195 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1946/