$100 in 1914 is worth $299 in 1961,
because prices increased 199.0% over that period, an average of
2.36% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$299
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
199.0%
Average inflation rate
2.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$299
Price difference ($100 base)
$199
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1914 → 1961
$299
$100 in 1961 → 1914
$33.44
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1961
Between 1914 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 199.0%, which works out to an average of
2.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.33 buys in 1961: the 1914 dollar
lost 66.6% of its purchasing power over
these 47 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 1961 at the same ratio, 2.99: $1,000 becomes
$2,990, and $10,000 becomes $29,900.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1961
$1.00
$2.99
$5.00
$14.95
$10.00
$29.90
$20.00
$59.80
$50.00
$150
$100
$299
$500
$1,495
$1,000
$2,990
$5,000
$14,950
$10,000
$29,900
$100,000
$299,000
$1,000,000
$2,990,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1961
Between 1914 and 1961, apparel rose the most, up 207.3%, while food rose the least, up 198.0%, against 199.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.36%
$299
Apparel
2.42%
$307
Food
2.35%
$298
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 1961
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 1914–1961 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$241
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$296
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$299
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $141 by
1938, on its way to $299 in 1961; 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: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $299; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1961: $100 is worth $299 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1961/