$100 in 1914 is worth $223 in 1947,
because prices increased 123.0% over that period, an average of
2.46% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$223
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
123.0%
Average inflation rate
2.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$223
Price difference ($100 base)
$123
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1914 → 1947
$223
$100 in 1947 → 1914
$44.84
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1947
Between 1914 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 123.0%, which works out to an average of
2.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.45 buys in 1947: the 1914 dollar
lost 55.2% of its purchasing power over
these 33 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 1947 at the same ratio, 2.23: $1,000 becomes
$2,230, and $10,000 becomes $22,300.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1947
$1.00
$2.23
$5.00
$11.15
$10.00
$22.30
$20.00
$44.60
$50.00
$112
$100
$223
$500
$1,115
$1,000
$2,230
$5,000
$11,150
$10,000
$22,300
$100,000
$223,000
$1,000,000
$2,230,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1947
Between 1914 and 1947, apparel rose the most, up 166.0%, while food rose the least, up 136.3%, against 123.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.46%
$223
Apparel
3.01%
$266
Food
2.64%
$236
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 1947
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 1914–1947 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
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$223
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $167 by
1930, on its way to $223 in 1947; 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: 1947
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $223; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1947: $100 is worth $223 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1947/