$100 in 1916 is worth $128 in 1939,
because prices increased 27.5% over that period, an average of
1.06% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
27.5%
Average inflation rate
1.06% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$27.52
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1916 → 1939
$128
$100 in 1939 → 1916
$78.42
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1939
Between 1916 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 27.5%, which works out to an average of
1.06% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1939: the 1916 dollar
lost 21.6% of its purchasing power over
these 23 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 1939 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,275, and $10,000 becomes $12,752.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1939
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.38
$10.00
$12.75
$20.00
$25.50
$50.00
$63.76
$100
$128
$500
$638
$1,000
$1,275
$5,000
$6,376
$10,000
$12,752
$100,000
$127,523
$1,000,000
$1,275,229
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1939
Between 1916 and 1939, apparel rose the most, up 28.6%, while food rose the least, up 4.4%, against 27.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.06%
$128
Apparel
1.10%
$129
Food
0.19%
$104
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 1939
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.39% a year, and fell in the 1930s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1916–1939 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
1930–1939
-2.02%
-16.8%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $160 by
1927, on its way to $128 in 1939; 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 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $128; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1939: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1939/