$100 in 1914 is worth $1,076 in 1985,
because prices increased 976.0% over that period, an average of
3.40% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,076
in 1985
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
976.0%
Average inflation rate
3.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,076
Price difference ($100 base)
$976
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1985
107.6
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1985
3.56%
$100 in 1914 → 1985
$1,076
$100 in 1985 → 1914
$9.29
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1985
Between 1914 and 1985, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 107.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 976.0%, which works out to an average of
3.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1985: the 1914 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 71 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 1985 at the same ratio, 10.76: $1,000 becomes
$10,760, and $10,000 becomes $107,600.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1985
$1.00
$10.76
$5.00
$53.80
$10.00
$108
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$538
$100
$1,076
$500
$5,380
$1,000
$10,760
$5,000
$53,800
$10,000
$107,600
$100,000
$1,076,000
$1,000,000
$10,760,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1985
Between 1914 and 1985, food rose the most, up 935.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 600.0%, against 976.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1985, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.40%
$1,076
Food
3.35%
$1,035
Apparel
2.78%
$700
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 1985
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 1914–1985 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$824
1980–1985
5.48%
30.6%
$1,076
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $238 by
1949, on its way to $1,076 in 1985; 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: 1985
In 1985, prices rose 3.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,076; the year's average CPI of 107.6 is the level
behind every 1985 figure on this page.
By 1985, low inflation had become the norm rather than the exception.
Consumer prices rose 3.6% for the year, the fourth straight year in the
3-6% range following the double-digit spikes of 1980 and 1981, proof that
the disinflation had held rather than merely paused, as it had after
previous recessions. Overseas, the dollar had become a problem of its own:
years of high U.S. interest rates had pulled in foreign capital and pushed
the dollar’s value up so far that American exporters were losing business
abroad, widening the trade deficit. In September, the finance ministers of
the U.S., Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom met at New
York’s Plaza Hotel and agreed to coordinate a managed decline of the
dollar; it fell roughly 25% against major currencies over the following two
years. At home, Congress responded to a federal deficit that had roughly
tripled since 1980 by passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in December,
setting binding targets to shrink the deficit with automatic
across-the-board cuts if lawmakers missed them. Households felt the calmer
economy in small ways: first-class postage rose to 22 cents in February,
its first increase since November 1981, after nearly four years at 20
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1985: $100 is worth $1,076 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1985/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1985. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1985/