$100 in 1916 is worth $383 in 1972,
because prices increased 283.5% over that period, an average of
2.43% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$383
in 1972
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
283.5%
Average inflation rate
2.43% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$383
Price difference ($100 base)
$283
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1972
41.8
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1972
3.21%
$100 in 1916 → 1972
$383
$100 in 1972 → 1916
$26.08
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1972
Between 1916 and 1972, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 41.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 283.5%, which works out to an average of
2.43% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1972: the 1916 dollar
lost 73.9% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1972 at the same ratio, 3.83: $1,000 becomes
$3,835, and $10,000 becomes $38,349.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1972
$1.00
$3.83
$5.00
$19.17
$10.00
$38.35
$20.00
$76.70
$50.00
$192
$100
$383
$500
$1,917
$1,000
$3,835
$5,000
$19,174
$10,000
$38,349
$100,000
$383,486
$1,000,000
$3,834,862
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1972
Between 1916 and 1972, food rose the most, up 272.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 270.8%, against 283.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1972, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.43%
$383
Food
2.38%
$373
Apparel
2.37%
$371
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 1972
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 1916–1972 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$356
1970–1972
3.79%
7.7%
$383
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $161 by
1944, on its way to $383 in 1972; 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: 1972
In 1972, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $383; the year's average CPI of 41.8 is the level
behind every 1972 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 3.2% in 1972, the calmest year of the decade and a
sharp break from the previous two years. The relief was largely engineered:
Nixon’s wage and price controls, imposed as a 90-day freeze in August 1971,
had settled into a series of “phases” that capped how much businesses could
raise prices through the election year. Economists would later argue the
controls mostly deferred inflation rather than curing it, storing up pressure
that broke loose once they were lifted. Nixon spent political capital on
foreign policy that year, traveling to Beijing that February in the first
visit by a sitting U.S. president to the People’s Republic of China, a trip
that began normalizing relations Washington had frozen since 1949. Closer to
home, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National
Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex that June 17, an event that drew
little attention at the time but would eventually force Nixon from office.
None of it dented his re-election bid: Nixon carried 49 states against
Democrat George McGovern that November, helped by an economy that, on paper,
looked more stable than it had in years. A median household earned $9,697 in
1972, a new home sold for a median $27,600, and gas held near 36 cents a
gallon for a third straight year. Consumer prices stood 322.2% above their
1913 level, a lull that would not survive contact with the
controls’ expiration and the oil shock still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1972: $100 is worth $383 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1972/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1972. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1972/