$100 in 1915 is worth $169 in 1923,
because prices increased 69.3% over that period, an average of
6.80% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$169
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
69.3%
Average inflation rate
6.80% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$169
Price difference ($100 base)
$69.31
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1915 → 1923
$169
$100 in 1923 → 1915
$59.06
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1923
Between 1915 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 69.3%, which works out to an average of
6.80% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1923: the 1915 dollar
lost 40.9% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1923 at the same ratio, 1.69: $1,000 becomes
$1,693, and $10,000 becomes $16,931.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1923
$1.00
$1.69
$5.00
$8.47
$10.00
$16.93
$20.00
$33.86
$50.00
$84.65
$100
$169
$500
$847
$1,000
$1,693
$5,000
$8,465
$10,000
$16,931
$100,000
$169,307
$1,000,000
$1,693,069
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1923
Between 1915 and 1923, apparel rose the most, up 77.1%, while food rose the least, up 54.0%, against 69.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.80%
$169
Apparel
7.41%
$177
Food
5.55%
$154
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–).
Decade by decade: 1915 to 1923
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 14.64% a year, and fell in the 1920s (5.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1915–1923 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1915, at end
1915–1920
14.64%
98.0%
$198
1920–1923
-5.09%
-14.5%
$169
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $171 by
1919, on its way to $169 in 1923; 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.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $169; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1923: $100 is worth $169 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1923/