$100 in 1915 is worth $2,562 in 2020,
because prices increased 2462.5% over that period, an average of
3.14% a year.
$100 in 1915 has
the same buying power as
$2,562
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2462.5%
Average inflation rate
3.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,562
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,462
CPI in 1915
10.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1915
1.00%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1915 → 2020
$2,562
$100 in 2020 → 1915
$3.90
What happened to prices between 1915 and 2020
Between 1915 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2462.5%, which works out to an average of
3.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1915 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2020: the 1915 dollar
lost 96.1% of its purchasing power over
these 105 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 2020 at the same ratio, 25.62: $1,000 becomes
$25,625, and $10,000 becomes $256,249.
Amount in 1915
Value in 2020
$1.00
$25.62
$5.00
$128
$10.00
$256
$20.00
$512
$50.00
$1,281
$100
$2,562
$500
$12,812
$1,000
$25,625
$5,000
$128,124
$10,000
$256,249
$100,000
$2,562,485
$1,000,000
$25,624,851
Inflation by spending category, 1915–2020
Between 1915 and 2020, food rose the most, up 2572.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 671.8%, against 2462.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1915
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1915 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.14%
$2,562
Food
3.18%
$2,672
Apparel
1.97%
$772
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 2020
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 1915–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$2,562
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1915
$100 from 1915 had already become $312 by
1965, on its way to $2,562 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1915 had the buying
power of $2,562; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1915 to 2020: $100 is worth $2,562 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1915 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1915-to-2020/