$100 in 1914 is worth $2,710 in 2021,
because prices increased 2609.7% over that period, an average of
3.13% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$2,710
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2609.7%
Average inflation rate
3.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,710
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,610
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1914 → 2021
$2,710
$100 in 2021 → 1914
$3.69
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2021
Between 1914 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2609.7%, which works out to an average of
3.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2021: the 1914 dollar
lost 96.3% of its purchasing power over
these 107 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 2021 at the same ratio, 27.10: $1,000 becomes
$27,097, and $10,000 becomes $270,970.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2021
$1.00
$27.10
$5.00
$135
$10.00
$271
$20.00
$542
$50.00
$1,355
$100
$2,710
$500
$13,549
$1,000
$27,097
$5,000
$135,485
$10,000
$270,970
$100,000
$2,709,700
$1,000,000
$27,097,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2021
Between 1914 and 2021, food rose the most, up 2623.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 706.6%, against 2609.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.13%
$2,710
Food
3.14%
$2,723
Apparel
1.97%
$807
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 2021
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 1914–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$2,710
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $367 by
1969, on its way to $2,710 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $2,710; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2021: $100 is worth $2,710 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2021/