$100 in 1914 is worth $1,482 in 1994,
because prices increased 1382.0% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,482
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1382.0%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,482
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,382
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1914 → 1994
$1,482
$100 in 1994 → 1914
$6.75
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1994
Between 1914 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1382.0%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.07 buys in 1994: the 1914 dollar
lost 93.3% of its purchasing power over
these 80 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 1994 at the same ratio, 14.82: $1,000 becomes
$14,820, and $10,000 becomes $148,200.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1994
$1.00
$14.82
$5.00
$74.10
$10.00
$148
$20.00
$296
$50.00
$741
$100
$1,482
$500
$7,410
$1,000
$14,820
$5,000
$74,100
$10,000
$148,200
$100,000
$1,482,000
$1,000,000
$14,820,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1994
Between 1914 and 1994, food rose the most, up 1314.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 789.3%, against 1382.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$1,482
Food
3.37%
$1,415
Apparel
2.77%
$889
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 1994
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 1914–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$1,482
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $269 by
1954, on its way to $1,482 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,482; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1994: $100 is worth $1,482 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1994/