$100 in 1916 is worth $153 in 1930,
because prices increased 53.2% over that period, an average of
3.09% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$153
in 1930
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
53.2%
Average inflation rate
3.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$153
Price difference ($100 base)
$53.21
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1930
16.7
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
$100 in 1916 → 1930
$153
$100 in 1930 → 1916
$65.27
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1930
Between 1916 and 1930, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 16.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 53.2%, which works out to an average of
3.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.65 buys in 1930: the 1916 dollar
lost 34.7% of its purchasing power over
these 14 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 1930 at the same ratio, 1.53: $1,000 becomes
$1,532, and $10,000 becomes $15,321.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1930
$1.00
$1.53
$5.00
$7.66
$10.00
$15.32
$20.00
$30.64
$50.00
$76.61
$100
$153
$500
$766
$1,000
$1,532
$5,000
$7,661
$10,000
$15,321
$100,000
$153,211
$1,000,000
$1,532,110
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1930
Between 1916 and 1930, apparel rose the most, up 44.0%, while food rose the least, up 38.1%, against 53.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1930, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.09%
$153
Apparel
2.64%
$144
Food
2.33%
$138
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 1930
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1930 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1916, at end
1916–1920
16.39%
83.5%
$183
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$153
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $157 by
1923, on its way to $153 in 1930; 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 1930, prices fell 2.3% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $153; the year's average CPI of 16.7 is the level
behind every 1930 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 2.3% in 1930, a mild decline compared with what was
coming but the first sign that the summer 1929 downturn was not going to be
short. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that contraction from
August 1929, and by the time it finally bottomed out in March 1933 it would
run 43 months, the longest of any downturn in the NBER’s chronology back to
1854. Congress made the trade picture worse in June, when President Hoover
signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on more than 20,000
imported goods to some of the highest levels in a century. Trading partners
retaliated with tariffs of their own, and global trade volumes collapsed
over the next several years, deepening a downturn economists still debate
how much the tariff itself worsened. The financial system cracked that fall:
a regional banking panic culminated in the December 11 failure of the Bank
of United States in New York, at the time the largest bank failure in
American history, wiping out more than $200 million in deposits. It was the
first of four banking panics that would hit the country before 1933 was
out. Consumer prices still stood 68.7% above their 1913
starting point, but the direction had clearly turned. First-class postage
held at 2 cents, unchanged for eleven straight years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1930: $100 is worth $153 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1930/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1930. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1930/