$100 in 1914 is worth $1,240 in 1989,
because prices increased 1140.0% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,240
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1140.0%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,240
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,140
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1914 → 1989
$1,240
$100 in 1989 → 1914
$8.06
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1989
Between 1914 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1140.0%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.08 buys in 1989: the 1914 dollar
lost 91.9% of its purchasing power over
these 75 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 1989 at the same ratio, 12.40: $1,000 becomes
$12,400, and $10,000 becomes $124,000.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1989
$1.00
$12.40
$5.00
$62.00
$10.00
$124
$20.00
$248
$50.00
$620
$100
$1,240
$500
$6,200
$1,000
$12,400
$5,000
$62,000
$10,000
$124,000
$100,000
$1,240,000
$1,000,000
$12,400,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1989
Between 1914 and 1989, food rose the most, up 1126.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 690.7%, against 1140.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$1,240
Food
3.40%
$1,226
Apparel
2.80%
$791
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 1989
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 1914–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$1,240
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $238 by
1949, on its way to $1,240 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,240; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1989: $100 is worth $1,240 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1989/