$100 in 1914 is worth $1,771 in 2001,
because prices increased 1671.0% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,771
in 2001
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1671.0%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,771
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,671
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2001
177.1
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2001
2.85%
$100 in 1914 → 2001
$1,771
$100 in 2001 → 1914
$5.65
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2001
Between 1914 and 2001, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 177.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1671.0%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2001: the 1914 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 87 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 2001 at the same ratio, 17.71: $1,000 becomes
$17,710, and $10,000 becomes $177,100.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2001
$1.00
$17.71
$5.00
$88.55
$10.00
$177
$20.00
$354
$50.00
$886
$100
$1,771
$500
$8,855
$1,000
$17,710
$5,000
$88,550
$10,000
$177,100
$100,000
$1,771,000
$1,000,000
$17,710,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2001
Between 1914 and 2001, food rose the most, up 1597.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 748.7%, against 1671.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2001, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$1,771
Food
3.31%
$1,697
Apparel
2.49%
$849
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 2001
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 1914–2001 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,722
2000–2001
2.85%
2.8%
$1,771
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $291 by
1959, on its way to $1,771 in 2001; 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: 2001
In 2001, prices rose 2.8% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,771; the year's average CPI of 177.1 is the level
behind every 2001 figure on this page.
Inflation fell to 2.8% in 2001 from 3.4% the year before, as a recession that began in March
cut demand and gasoline slid to an average of $1.46 a gallon. The median household earned about
$42,200, roughly flat from 2000, and a new home cost about $175,200. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate 11 times over the year, from 6.5% to 1.75%, the lowest since 1961. After the
September 11 attacks, U.S. stock markets closed for four trading days, and air travel dropped
sharply until the following year. Congress had already passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut in June,
which included rebate checks of up to $600. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the
recession’s end at November, but unemployment kept rising into 2003. A first-class stamp went to
34 cents in January, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15. The Fed’s cuts were the
first step in a long period of very cheap borrowing that would fuel the housing boom.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2001: $100 is worth $1,771 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2001/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2001. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2001/