$100 in 1916 is worth $139 in 1931,
because prices increased 39.4% over that period, an average of
2.24% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$139
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
39.4%
Average inflation rate
2.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$139
Price difference ($100 base)
$39.45
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1916 → 1931
$139
$100 in 1931 → 1916
$71.71
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1931
Between 1916 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 39.4%, which works out to an average of
2.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.72 buys in 1931: the 1916 dollar
lost 28.3% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1931 at the same ratio, 1.39: $1,000 becomes
$1,394, and $10,000 becomes $13,945.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1931
$1.00
$1.39
$5.00
$6.97
$10.00
$13.94
$20.00
$27.89
$50.00
$69.72
$100
$139
$500
$697
$1,000
$1,394
$5,000
$6,972
$10,000
$13,945
$100,000
$139,450
$1,000,000
$1,394,495
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1931
Between 1916 and 1931, apparel rose the most, up 31.0%, while food rose the least, up 14.2%, against 39.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.24%
$139
Apparel
1.81%
$131
Food
0.89%
$114
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 1931
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1931 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
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$139
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $157 by
1923, on its way to $139 in 1931; 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 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $139; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1931: $100 is worth $139 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1931/