$100 in 1915 is worth $174 in 1944,
because prices increased 74.3% over that period, an average of
1.93% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$174
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
74.3%
Average inflation rate
1.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$174
Price difference ($100 base)
$74.26
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1915 → 1944
$174
$100 in 1944 → 1915
$57.39
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1944
Between 1915 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 74.3%, which works out to an average of
1.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.57 buys in 1944: the 1915 dollar
lost 42.6% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.74: $1,000 becomes
$1,743, and $10,000 becomes $17,426.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.74
$5.00
$8.71
$10.00
$17.43
$20.00
$34.85
$50.00
$87.13
$100
$174
$500
$871
$1,000
$1,743
$5,000
$8,713
$10,000
$17,426
$100,000
$174,257
$1,000,000
$1,742,574
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1944
Between 1915 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 94.8%, while food rose the least, up 69.0%, against 74.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.93%
$174
Apparel
2.33%
$195
Food
1.83%
$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 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 14.64% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1915–1944 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1915, at end
1915–1920
14.64%
98.0%
$198
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$165
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$139
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$174
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $169 by
1929, on its way to $174 in 1944; 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 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $174; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1944: $100 is worth $174 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1944/