$100 in 1914 is worth $2,016 in 2006,
because prices increased 1916.0% over that period, an average of
3.32% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$2,016
in 2006
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1916.0%
Average inflation rate
3.32% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,016
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,916
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2006
201.6
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2006
3.23%
$100 in 1914 → 2006
$2,016
$100 in 2006 → 1914
$4.96
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2006
Between 1914 and 2006, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 201.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1916.0%, which works out to an average of
3.32% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2006: the 1914 dollar
lost 95.0% of its purchasing power over
these 92 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 2006 at the same ratio, 20.16: $1,000 becomes
$20,160, and $10,000 becomes $201,600.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2006
$1.00
$20.16
$5.00
$101
$10.00
$202
$20.00
$403
$50.00
$1,008
$100
$2,016
$500
$10,080
$1,000
$20,160
$5,000
$100,800
$10,000
$201,600
$100,000
$2,016,000
$1,000,000
$20,160,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2006
Between 1914 and 2006, food rose the most, up 1813.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 696.7%, against 1916.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2006, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.32%
$2,016
Food
3.26%
$1,914
Apparel
2.28%
$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 2006
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 1914–2006 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
2000–2006
2.66%
17.1%
$2,016
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $291 by
1959, on its way to $2,016 in 2006; 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: 2006
In 2006, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $2,016; the year's average CPI of 201.6 is the level
behind every 2006 figure on this page.
Inflation was 3.2% in 2006 and gasoline averaged $2.59 a gallon, up 29 cents from 2005. The
median household earned about $48,200 and the median new home cost $246,500, a gain of about
2% after a 13% jump in 2004 and 9% in 2005. National home prices, by the S&P/Case-Shiller
index, peaked in mid-2006. Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chair on
February 1, and on June 29 the Fed raised its policy rate to 5.25%, the last of 17 straight
quarter-point increases. It held there for over a year. A first-class stamp rose to 39 cents in
January, and the federal minimum wage was $5.15 for the ninth full year in a row.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2006: $100 is worth $2,016 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2006/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2006. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2006/