$100 in 1914 is worth $1,953 in 2005,
because prices increased 1853.0% over that period, an average of
3.32% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$1,953
in 2005
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1853.0%
Average inflation rate
3.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,953
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,853
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2005
195.3
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2005
3.39%
$100 in 1914 → 2005
$1,953
$100 in 2005 → 1914
$5.12
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2005
Between 1914 and 2005, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 195.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1853.0%, which works out to an average of
3.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2005: the 1914 dollar
lost 94.9% of its purchasing power over
these 91 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 2005 at the same ratio, 19.53: $1,000 becomes
$19,530, and $10,000 becomes $195,300.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2005
$1.00
$19.53
$5.00
$97.65
$10.00
$195
$20.00
$391
$50.00
$977
$100
$1,953
$500
$9,765
$1,000
$19,530
$5,000
$97,650
$10,000
$195,300
$100,000
$1,953,000
$1,000,000
$19,530,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2005
Between 1914 and 2005, food rose the most, up 1769.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 696.7%, against 1853.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2005, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.32%
$1,953
Food
3.27%
$1,870
Apparel
2.31%
$797
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 2005
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 1914–2005 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
2000–2005
2.55%
13.4%
$1,953
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $291 by
1959, on its way to $1,953 in 2005; 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: 2005
In 2005, prices rose 3.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $1,953; the year's average CPI of 195.3 is the level
behind every 2005 figure on this page.
Inflation rose to 3.4% in 2005, up from 2.7% in 2004, as gasoline averaged $2.30 a gallon,
compared with $1.88 the year before. Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, and with
Hurricane Rita weeks later it disrupted Gulf Coast refining, pushing the national average
price past $3 in early September. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate at every meeting,
from 2.25% to 4.25%, to keep energy costs from feeding into other prices. The median household
earned about $46,300, up 4.5% from 2004, but the median new home price rose a further 9%, to
$240,900. In April, Congress passed a bankruptcy law that made it harder to clear debts. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents until January 2006, and the federal minimum wage stayed
at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2005: $100 is worth $1,953 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2005/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2005. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2005/