$100 in 1916 is worth $274 in 1961,
because prices increased 174.3% over that period, an average of
2.27% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$274
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
174.3%
Average inflation rate
2.27% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$274
Price difference ($100 base)
$174
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1916 → 1961
$274
$100 in 1961 → 1916
$36.45
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1961
Between 1916 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 174.3%, which works out to an average of
2.27% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.36 buys in 1961: the 1916 dollar
lost 63.5% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1961 at the same ratio, 2.74: $1,000 becomes
$2,743, and $10,000 becomes $27,431.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1961
$1.00
$2.74
$5.00
$13.72
$10.00
$27.43
$20.00
$54.86
$50.00
$137
$100
$274
$500
$1,372
$1,000
$2,743
$5,000
$13,716
$10,000
$27,431
$100,000
$274,312
$1,000,000
$2,743,119
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1961
Between 1916 and 1961, apparel rose the most, up 174.4%, while food rose the least, up 169.0%, against 174.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.27%
$274
Apparel
2.27%
$274
Food
2.22%
$269
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 1961
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 1916–1961 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$221
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$272
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$274
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $129 by
1938, on its way to $274 in 1961; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $274; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1961: $100 is worth $274 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1961/