$100 in 1914 is worth $2,588 in 2020,
because prices increased 2488.1% over that period, an average of
3.12% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$2,588
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2488.1%
Average inflation rate
3.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,588
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,488
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1914 → 2020
$2,588
$100 in 2020 → 1914
$3.86
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2020
Between 1914 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2488.1%, which works out to an average of
3.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2020: the 1914 dollar
lost 96.1% of its purchasing power over
these 106 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 2020 at the same ratio, 25.88: $1,000 becomes
$25,881, and $10,000 becomes $258,811.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2020
$1.00
$25.88
$5.00
$129
$10.00
$259
$20.00
$518
$50.00
$1,294
$100
$2,588
$500
$12,941
$1,000
$25,881
$5,000
$129,405
$10,000
$258,811
$100,000
$2,588,110
$1,000,000
$25,881,100
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2020
Between 1914 and 2020, food rose the most, up 2519.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 687.2%, against 2488.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.12%
$2,588
Food
3.13%
$2,620
Apparel
1.97%
$787
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 2020
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 1914–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$2,588
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $367 by
1969, on its way to $2,588 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $2,588; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2020: $100 is worth $2,588 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2020/