$100 in 1914 is worth $652 in 1978,
because prices increased 552.0% over that period, an average of
2.97% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$652
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
552.0%
Average inflation rate
2.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$652
Price difference ($100 base)
$552
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1914 → 1978
$652
$100 in 1978 → 1914
$15.34
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1978
Between 1914 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 552.0%, which works out to an average of
2.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.15 buys in 1978: the 1914 dollar
lost 84.7% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 1978 at the same ratio, 6.52: $1,000 becomes
$6,520, and $10,000 becomes $65,200.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1978
$1.00
$6.52
$5.00
$32.60
$10.00
$65.20
$20.00
$130
$50.00
$326
$100
$652
$500
$3,260
$1,000
$6,520
$5,000
$32,600
$10,000
$65,200
$100,000
$652,000
$1,000,000
$6,520,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1978
Between 1914 and 1978, food rose the most, up 605.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 442.7%, against 552.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.97%
$652
Food
3.10%
$706
Apparel
2.68%
$543
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 1978
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 1914–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$388
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$652
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $176 by
1944, on its way to $652 in 1978; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $652; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1978: $100 is worth $652 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1978/