$100 in 1916 is worth $598 in 1978,
because prices increased 498.2% over that period, an average of
2.93% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$598
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
498.2%
Average inflation rate
2.93% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$598
Price difference ($100 base)
$498
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1916 → 1978
$598
$100 in 1978 → 1916
$16.72
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1978
Between 1916 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 498.2%, which works out to an average of
2.93% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.17 buys in 1978: the 1916 dollar
lost 83.3% of its purchasing power over
these 62 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 1978 at the same ratio, 5.98: $1,000 becomes
$5,982, and $10,000 becomes $59,817.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1978
$1.00
$5.98
$5.00
$29.91
$10.00
$59.82
$20.00
$120
$50.00
$299
$100
$598
$500
$2,991
$1,000
$5,982
$5,000
$29,908
$10,000
$59,817
$100,000
$598,165
$1,000,000
$5,981,651
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1978
Between 1916 and 1978, food rose the most, up 537.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 384.5%, against 498.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.93%
$598
Food
3.03%
$637
Apparel
2.58%
$485
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 1978
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 1916–1978 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
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$598
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $179 by
1946, on its way to $598 in 1978; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $598; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1978: $100 is worth $598 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1978/