$100 in 1914 is worth $1,445 in 1993,
because prices increased 1345.0% over that period, an average of
3.44% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,445
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1345.0%
Average inflation rate
3.44% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,445
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,345
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1914 → 1993
$1,445
$100 in 1993 → 1914
$6.92
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1993
Between 1914 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1345.0%, which works out to an average of
3.44% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.07 buys in 1993: the 1914 dollar
lost 93.1% of its purchasing power over
these 79 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 1993 at the same ratio, 14.45: $1,000 becomes
$14,450, and $10,000 becomes $144,500.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1993
$1.00
$14.45
$5.00
$72.25
$10.00
$145
$20.00
$289
$50.00
$723
$100
$1,445
$500
$7,225
$1,000
$14,450
$5,000
$72,250
$10,000
$144,500
$100,000
$1,445,000
$1,000,000
$14,450,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1993
Between 1914 and 1993, food rose the most, up 1281.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 791.3%, against 1345.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.44%
$1,445
Food
3.38%
$1,381
Apparel
2.81%
$891
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 1993
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 1914–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$1,307
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$1,445
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $269 by
1954, on its way to $1,445 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,445; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1993: $100 is worth $1,445 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1993/