$100 in 1914 is worth $1,630 in 1998,
because prices increased 1530.0% over that period, an average of
3.38% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,630
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1530.0%
Average inflation rate
3.38% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,630
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,530
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1914 → 1998
$1,630
$100 in 1998 → 1914
$6.13
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1998
Between 1914 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1530.0%, which works out to an average of
3.38% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.06 buys in 1998: the 1914 dollar
lost 93.9% of its purchasing power over
these 84 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 1998 at the same ratio, 16.30: $1,000 becomes
$16,300, and $10,000 becomes $163,000.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1998
$1.00
$16.30
$5.00
$81.50
$10.00
$163
$20.00
$326
$50.00
$815
$100
$1,630
$500
$8,150
$1,000
$16,300
$5,000
$81,500
$10,000
$163,000
$100,000
$1,630,000
$1,000,000
$16,300,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1998
Between 1914 and 1998, food rose the most, up 1475.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 786.7%, against 1530.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.38%
$1,630
Food
3.34%
$1,575
Apparel
2.63%
$887
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 1998
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 1914–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$1,630
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $269 by
1954, on its way to $1,630 in 1998; 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: 1998
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,630; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 1998: $100 is worth $1,630 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1998/