$100 in 1915 is worth $2,227 in 2011,
because prices increased 2127.1% over that period, an average of
3.29% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$2,227
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2127.1%
Average inflation rate
3.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,227
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,127
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1915 → 2011
$2,227
$100 in 2011 → 1915
$4.49
What happened to prices between 1915 and 2011
Between 1915 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2127.1%, which works out to an average of
3.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2011: the 1915 dollar
lost 95.5% of its purchasing power over
these 96 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 2011 at the same ratio, 22.27: $1,000 becomes
$22,271, and $10,000 becomes $222,712.
Amount in 1915
Value in 2011
$1.00
$22.27
$5.00
$111
$10.00
$223
$20.00
$445
$50.00
$1,114
$100
$2,227
$500
$11,136
$1,000
$22,271
$5,000
$111,356
$10,000
$222,712
$100,000
$2,227,119
$1,000,000
$22,271,188
Inflation by spending category, 1915–2011
Between 1915 and 2011, food rose the most, up 2178.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 698.1%, against 2127.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.29%
$2,227
Food
3.31%
$2,278
Apparel
2.19%
$798
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 2011
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 1915–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$2,159
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$2,227
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $312 by
1965, on its way to $2,227 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $2,227; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 2011: $100 is worth $2,227 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2011/