$100 in 1914 is worth $1,799 in 2002,
because prices increased 1699.0% over that period, an average of
3.34% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,799
in 2002
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1699.0%
Average inflation rate
3.34% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,799
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,699
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2002
179.9
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2002
1.58%
$100 in 1914 → 2002
$1,799
$100 in 2002 → 1914
$5.56
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2002
Between 1914 and 2002, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 179.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1699.0%, which works out to an average of
3.34% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2002: the 1914 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 88 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 2002 at the same ratio, 17.99: $1,000 becomes
$17,990, and $10,000 becomes $179,900.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2002
$1.00
$17.99
$5.00
$89.95
$10.00
$180
$20.00
$360
$50.00
$900
$100
$1,799
$500
$8,995
$1,000
$17,990
$5,000
$89,950
$10,000
$179,900
$100,000
$1,799,000
$1,000,000
$17,990,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2002
Between 1914 and 2002, food rose the most, up 1627.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 726.7%, against 1699.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2002, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.34%
$1,799
Food
3.29%
$1,727
Apparel
2.43%
$827
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 2002
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 1914–2002 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
2000–2002
2.21%
4.5%
$1,799
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $291 by
1959, on its way to $1,799 in 2002; 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: 2002
In 2002, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,799; the year's average CPI of 179.9 is the level
behind every 2002 figure on this page.
The CPI rose 1.6% in 2002, the lowest annual rate of the decade so far, with gasoline down to an
average of $1.36 a gallon and slack in the labor market keeping wage pressure low. The median
household earned about $42,400, and a new home cost roughly $187,600, an increase of about 7%
from the year before as low mortgage rates began to lift housing. The Federal Reserve cut its
policy rate to 1.25% in November. Stocks were moving the other way: after the Enron and WorldCom
scandals, the S&P 500 hit its bear-market low on October 9, about 49% below its March 2000
peak, and Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July to tighten corporate accounting rules.
On January 1, euro banknotes and coins replaced national currencies in 12 European countries. A
first-class stamp rose to 37 cents in June, and the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2002: $100 is worth $1,799 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2002/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2002. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2002/