$100 in 1916 is worth $157 in 1923,
because prices increased 56.9% over that period, an average of
6.64% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.9%
Average inflation rate
6.64% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.88
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1916 → 1923
$157
$100 in 1923 → 1916
$63.74
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1923
Between 1916 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.9%, which works out to an average of
6.64% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1923: the 1916 dollar
lost 36.3% of its purchasing power over
these 7 years.
1916 was when World War I first showed up clearly in American price tags.
Consumer prices rose 7.9% for the year, easily the sharpest increase since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI history begins in 1913, as factories ran
flat out to fill steel, munitions, and food orders from Britain and France.
Railroad workers felt the squeeze from rising living costs enough to threaten
a nationwide strike; Congress headed it off in September with the Adamson
Act, which set an eight-hour standard workday for interstate rail employees,
the first federal law of its kind covering private-sector hours. Washington
was also preparing more directly for war: the National Defense Act, signed
in June, expanded the Army and National Guard and funded new
government-owned munitions plants, adding another source of demand to an
economy already running hot. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in November
largely on having kept the country out of the fighting so far, a promise
that would not survive the following spring. A first-class stamp still cost
2 cents, one of the few prices that had not yet moved.
Every 1916 amount converts to 1923 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,569, and $10,000 becomes $15,688.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1923
$1.00
$1.57
$5.00
$7.84
$10.00
$15.69
$20.00
$31.38
$50.00
$78.44
$100
$157
$500
$784
$1,000
$1,569
$5,000
$7,844
$10,000
$15,688
$100,000
$156,881
$1,000,000
$1,568,807
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1923
Between 1916 and 1923, apparel rose the most, up 61.3%, while food rose the least, up 36.3%, against 56.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
6.64%
$157
Apparel
7.07%
$161
Food
4.52%
$136
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1916: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1916 to 1923
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (5.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1923 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1923
-5.09%
-14.5%
$157
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $159 by
1919, on its way to $157 in 1923; 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.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $157; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1923: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1923/