$100 in 1916 is worth $157 in 1929,
because prices increased 56.9% over that period, an average of
3.52% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$157
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.9%
Average inflation rate
3.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$157
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.88
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1916 → 1929
$157
$100 in 1929 → 1916
$63.74
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1929
Between 1916 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.9%, which works out to an average of
3.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1929: the 1916 dollar
lost 36.3% of its purchasing power over
these 13 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 1929 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,569, and $10,000 becomes $15,688.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1929
$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, 1916–1929
Between 1916 and 1929, apparel rose the most, up 47.0%, while food rose the least, up 46.0%, against 56.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.52%
$157
Apparel
3.01%
$147
Food
2.95%
$146
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 1929
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1929 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1929
-1.73%
-14.5%
$157
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $154 by
1922, on its way to $157 in 1929; 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 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $157; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1929 figure on this page.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1929: $100 is worth $157 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1929/