$100 in 1915 is worth $955 in 1982,
because prices increased 855.4% over that period, an average of
3.43% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$955
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
855.4%
Average inflation rate
3.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$955
Price difference ($100 base)
$855
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1915 → 1982
$955
$100 in 1982 → 1915
$10.47
What happened to prices between 1915 and 1982
Between 1915 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 855.4%, which works out to an average of
3.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.10 buys in 1982: the 1915 dollar
lost 89.5% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 1982 at the same ratio, 9.55: $1,000 becomes
$9,554, and $10,000 becomes $95,545.
Amount in 1915
Value in 1982
$1.00
$9.55
$5.00
$47.77
$10.00
$95.54
$20.00
$191
$50.00
$478
$100
$955
$500
$4,777
$1,000
$9,554
$5,000
$47,772
$10,000
$95,545
$100,000
$955,446
$1,000,000
$9,554,455
Inflation by spending category, 1915–1982
Between 1915 and 1982, food rose the most, up 874.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 539.2%, against 855.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.43%
$955
Food
3.46%
$974
Apparel
2.81%
$639
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 1982
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 1915–1982 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$239
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$293
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$384
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$816
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$955
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $239 by
1950, on its way to $955 in 1982; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $955; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 1982: $100 is worth $955 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-1982/