$100 in 1915 is worth $236 in 1949,
because prices increased 135.6% over that period, an average of
2.55% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$236
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
135.6%
Average inflation rate
2.55% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$236
Price difference ($100 base)
$136
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1915 → 1949
$236
$100 in 1949 → 1915
$42.44
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1949
Between 1915 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 135.6%, which works out to an average of
2.55% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.42 buys in 1949: the 1915 dollar
lost 57.6% of its purchasing power over
these 34 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 1949 at the same ratio, 2.36: $1,000 becomes
$2,356, and $10,000 becomes $23,564.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1949
$1.00
$2.36
$5.00
$11.78
$10.00
$23.56
$20.00
$47.13
$50.00
$118
$100
$236
$500
$1,178
$1,000
$2,356
$5,000
$11,782
$10,000
$23,564
$100,000
$235,644
$1,000,000
$2,356,436
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1949
Between 1915 and 1949, apparel rose the most, up 166.7%, while food rose the least, up 150.0%, against 135.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.55%
$236
Apparel
2.93%
$267
Food
2.73%
$250
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 1949
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 1915–1949 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
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$236
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $150 by
1931, on its way to $236 in 1949; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1949
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $236; the year's average CPI of 23.8 is the level
behind every 1949 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1949: $100 is worth $236 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1949/