$100 in 1914 is worth $2,145 in 2009,
because prices increased 2045.4% over that period, an average of
3.28% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$2,145
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2045.4%
Average inflation rate
3.28% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,145
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,045
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1914 → 2009
$2,145
$100 in 2009 → 1914
$4.66
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2009
Between 1914 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2045.4%, which works out to an average of
3.28% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2009: the 1914 dollar
lost 95.3% of its purchasing power over
these 95 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 2009 at the same ratio, 21.45: $1,000 becomes
$21,454, and $10,000 becomes $214,537.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2009
$1.00
$21.45
$5.00
$107
$10.00
$215
$20.00
$429
$50.00
$1,073
$100
$2,145
$500
$10,727
$1,000
$21,454
$5,000
$107,269
$10,000
$214,537
$100,000
$2,145,370
$1,000,000
$21,453,700
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2009
Between 1914 and 2009, food rose the most, up 2036.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 700.5%, against 2045.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.28%
$2,145
Food
3.28%
$2,137
Apparel
2.21%
$801
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 2009
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 1914–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$2,145
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $291 by
1959, on its way to $2,145 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $2,145; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2009: $100 is worth $2,145 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2009/