$100 in 1915 is worth $175 in 1926,
because prices increased 75.2% over that period, an average of
5.23% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$175
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
75.2%
Average inflation rate
5.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$175
Price difference ($100 base)
$75.25
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1915 → 1926
$175
$100 in 1926 → 1915
$57.06
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1926
Between 1915 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 75.2%, which works out to an average of
5.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1926: the 1915 dollar
lost 42.9% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1926 at the same ratio, 1.75: $1,000 becomes
$1,752, and $10,000 becomes $17,525.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1926
$1.00
$1.75
$5.00
$8.76
$10.00
$17.52
$20.00
$35.05
$50.00
$87.62
$100
$175
$500
$876
$1,000
$1,752
$5,000
$8,762
$10,000
$17,525
$100,000
$175,248
$1,000,000
$1,752,475
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1926
Between 1915 and 1926, food rose the most, up 70.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 69.3%, against 75.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
5.23%
$175
Food
4.94%
$170
Apparel
4.90%
$169
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 1926
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 14.64% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1915–1926 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1915, at end
1915–1920
14.64%
98.0%
$198
1920–1926
-2.02%
-11.5%
$175
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $198 by
1920, on its way to $175 in 1926; 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 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $175; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1926: $100 is worth $175 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1926/