$100 in 1916 is worth $165 in 1945,
because prices increased 65.1% over that period, an average of
1.74% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$165
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
65.1%
Average inflation rate
1.74% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$165
Price difference ($100 base)
$65.14
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1916 → 1945
$165
$100 in 1945 → 1916
$60.56
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1945
Between 1916 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 65.1%, which works out to an average of
1.74% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.61 buys in 1945: the 1916 dollar
lost 39.4% of its purchasing power over
these 29 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.65: $1,000 becomes
$1,651, and $10,000 becomes $16,514.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.65
$5.00
$8.26
$10.00
$16.51
$20.00
$33.03
$50.00
$82.57
$100
$165
$500
$826
$1,000
$1,651
$5,000
$8,257
$10,000
$16,514
$100,000
$165,138
$1,000,000
$1,651,376
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1945
Between 1916 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 86.9%, while food rose the least, up 53.1%, against 65.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.74%
$165
Apparel
2.18%
$187
Food
1.48%
$153
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 1945
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 1916–1945 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
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$128
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$165
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $153 by
1930, on its way to $165 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $165; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1945: $100 is worth $165 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1945/