$100 in 1914 is worth $315 in 1965,
because prices increased 215.0% over that period, an average of
2.28% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$315
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
215.0%
Average inflation rate
2.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$315
Price difference ($100 base)
$215
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1914 → 1965
$315
$100 in 1965 → 1914
$31.75
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1965
Between 1914 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 215.0%, which works out to an average of
2.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.32 buys in 1965: the 1914 dollar
lost 68.3% of its purchasing power over
these 51 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 1965 at the same ratio, 3.15: $1,000 becomes
$3,150, and $10,000 becomes $31,500.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1965
$1.00
$3.15
$5.00
$15.75
$10.00
$31.50
$20.00
$63.00
$50.00
$158
$100
$315
$500
$1,575
$1,000
$3,150
$5,000
$15,750
$10,000
$31,500
$100,000
$315,000
$1,000,000
$3,150,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1965
Between 1914 and 1965, apparel rose the most, up 218.7%, while food rose the least, up 215.7%, against 215.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.28%
$315
Apparel
2.30%
$319
Food
2.28%
$316
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 1965
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 1914–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$315
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $140 by
1940, on its way to $315 in 1965; 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: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $315; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1965: $100 is worth $315 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1965/