$100 in 1914 is worth $3,137 in 2024,
because prices increased 3036.9% over that period, an average of
3.18% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$3,137
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3036.9%
Average inflation rate
3.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$3,137
Price difference ($100 base)
$3,037
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1914 → 2024
$3,137
$100 in 2024 → 1914
$3.19
What happened to prices between 1914 and 2024
Between 1914 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3036.9%, which works out to an average of
3.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.03 buys in 2024: the 1914 dollar
lost 96.8% of its purchasing power over
these 110 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 2024 at the same ratio, 31.37: $1,000 becomes
$31,369, and $10,000 becomes $313,689.
Amount in 1914
Value in 2024
$1.00
$31.37
$5.00
$157
$10.00
$314
$20.00
$627
$50.00
$1,568
$100
$3,137
$500
$15,684
$1,000
$31,369
$5,000
$156,845
$10,000
$313,689
$100,000
$3,136,890
$1,000,000
$31,368,900
Inflation by spending category, 1914–2024
Between 1914 and 2024, food rose the most, up 3137.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 776.6%, against 3036.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.18%
$3,137
Food
3.21%
$3,238
Apparel
1.99%
$877
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 2024
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 1914–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$3,137
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $367 by
1969, on its way to $3,137 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1914 had the buying
power of $3,137; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1914 to 2024: $100 is worth $3,137 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-2024/