$100 in 1914 is worth $2,511 in 2018,
because prices increased 2411.1% over that period, an average of
3.15% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$2,511
in 2018
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2411.1%
Average inflation rate
3.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,511
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,411
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2018
251.107
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2018
2.44%
$100 in 1914 → 2018
$2,511
$100 in 2018 → 1914
$3.98
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2018
Between 1914 and 2018, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 251.107.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2411.1%, which works out to an average of
3.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2018: the 1914 dollar
lost 96.0% of its purchasing power over
these 104 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 2018 at the same ratio, 25.11: $1,000 becomes
$25,111, and $10,000 becomes $251,107.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2018
$1.00
$25.11
$5.00
$126
$10.00
$251
$20.00
$502
$50.00
$1,256
$100
$2,511
$500
$12,555
$1,000
$25,111
$5,000
$125,554
$10,000
$251,107
$100,000
$2,511,070
$1,000,000
$25,110,700
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2018
Between 1914 and 2018, food rose the most, up 2385.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 737.7%, against 2411.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2018, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.15%
$2,511
Food
3.14%
$2,486
Apparel
2.06%
$838
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 2018
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 1914–2018 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$2,181
2010–2018
1.78%
15.2%
$2,511
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $310 by
1964, on its way to $2,511 in 2018; 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: 2018
In 2018, prices rose 2.4% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $2,511; the year's average CPI of 251.107 is the level
behind every 2018 figure on this page.
2018 was the peak of the late-2010s expansion. Consumer prices rose 2.4%,
the fastest since 2011, with gasoline averaging $2.72 a gallon after a summer
high. Unemployment fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969, and median
household income reached $63,179. The median new home sold for about $331,800,
and a first-class stamp cost 50 cents. The federal minimum wage was still $7.25.
Trade policy became a price factor for the first time in decades. New tariffs
on steel, aluminum, and a growing list of Chinese goods raised costs for
manufacturers and some consumer products, and retaliation cut into exports of
soybeans and other farm goods.
The Federal Reserve, led from February by Jerome Powell, raised rates four
times to 2.25–2.50%. A stock-market drop of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter
led the Fed to signal a pause in early 2019. Oil fell from over $75 a barrel in
October to below $50 by December, which pulled headline inflation lower going
into the next year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2018: $100 is worth $2,511 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2018/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2018. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2018/