$100 in 1916 is worth $162 in 1926,
because prices increased 62.4% over that period, an average of
4.97% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$162
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
62.4%
Average inflation rate
4.97% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$162
Price difference ($100 base)
$62.39
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1916 → 1926
$162
$100 in 1926 → 1916
$61.58
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1926
Between 1916 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 62.4%, which works out to an average of
4.97% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.62 buys in 1926: the 1916 dollar
lost 38.4% of its purchasing power over
these 10 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 1926 at the same ratio, 1.62: $1,000 becomes
$1,624, and $10,000 becomes $16,239.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1926
$1.00
$1.62
$5.00
$8.12
$10.00
$16.24
$20.00
$32.48
$50.00
$81.19
$100
$162
$500
$812
$1,000
$1,624
$5,000
$8,119
$10,000
$16,239
$100,000
$162,385
$1,000,000
$1,623,853
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1926
Between 1916 and 1926, apparel rose the most, up 54.2%, while food rose the least, up 50.4%, against 62.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.97%
$162
Apparel
4.42%
$154
Food
4.17%
$150
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 1926
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1926 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1926
-2.02%
-11.5%
$162
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $164 by
1921, on its way to $162 in 1926; 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 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $162; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1926: $100 is worth $162 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1926/