$100 in 1915 is worth $108 in 1916,
because prices increased 7.9% over that period, an average of
7.92% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$108
in 1916
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
7.9%
Average inflation rate
7.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$108
Price difference ($100 base)
$7.92
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1916
10.9
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
$100 in 1915 → 1916
$108
$100 in 1916 → 1915
$92.66
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1916
Between 1915 and 1916, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 10.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 7.9%, which works out to an average of
7.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.93 buys in 1916: the 1915 dollar
lost 7.3% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1915, the second straight year of near-flat
inflation before the wartime price surges of 1916 through 1918. The year’s
defining event had nothing to do with prices directly: a German submarine
sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast on May 7, killing 128
Americans and hardening U.S. opinion against Germany two years before the
country entered the war. Economically, 1915 was a turning point of a
different kind. A recession that had dragged on since 1913 began lifting as
Britain and France placed growing orders for steel, munitions, and other war
materiel with American manufacturers, and U.S. exports to the Allied powers
climbed sharply through the year. That demand would keep building through
1916, eventually pulling prices up with it. On the regulatory
side, the Federal Trade Commission opened for business in March, taking on
enforcement of the Clayton Antitrust Act that Congress had passed the
previous fall. A first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, unchanged since 1885
and still two years from its first wartime increase.
Every 1915 amount converts to 1916 at the same ratio, 1.08: $1,000 becomes
$1,079, and $10,000 becomes $10,792.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1916
$1.00
$1.08
$5.00
$5.40
$10.00
$10.79
$20.00
$21.58
$50.00
$53.96
$100
$108
$500
$540
$1,000
$1,079
$5,000
$5,396
$10,000
$10,792
$100,000
$107,921
$1,000,000
$1,079,208
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1916
Between 1915 and 1916, food rose the most, up 13.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 9.8%, against 7.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1916, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
7.92%
$108
Food
13.00%
$113
Apparel
9.80%
$110
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1915: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915grew to $108 by 1916; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1916, prices rose 7.9% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $108; the year's average CPI of 10.9 is the level
behind every 1916 figure on this page.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1916: $100 is worth $108 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1916/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1916. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1916/