$100 in 1915 is worth $1,870 in 2004,
because prices increased 1770.3% over that period, an average of
3.35% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$1,870
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1770.3%
Average inflation rate
3.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,870
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,770
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1915 → 2004
$1,870
$100 in 2004 → 1915
$5.35
What happened to prices between 1915 and 2004
Between 1915 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1770.3%, which works out to an average of
3.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2004: the 1915 dollar
lost 94.7% of its purchasing power over
these 89 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 2004 at the same ratio, 18.70: $1,000 becomes
$18,703, and $10,000 becomes $187,030.
Amount in 1915
Value in 2004
$1.00
$18.70
$5.00
$93.51
$10.00
$187
$20.00
$374
$50.00
$935
$100
$1,870
$500
$9,351
$1,000
$18,703
$5,000
$93,515
$10,000
$187,030
$100,000
$1,870,297
$1,000,000
$18,702,970
Inflation by spending category, 1915–2004
Between 1915 and 2004, food rose the most, up 1762.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 686.9%, against 1770.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.35%
$1,870
Food
3.34%
$1,862
Apparel
2.35%
$787
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 2004
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 1915–2004 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$1,294
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,705
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,870
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $293 by
1960, on its way to $1,870 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $1,870; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,870 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2004/