$100 in 1916 is worth $756 in 1980,
because prices increased 656.0% over that period, an average of
3.21% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$756
in 1980
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
656.0%
Average inflation rate
3.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$756
Price difference ($100 base)
$656
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1980
82.4
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1980
13.50%
$100 in 1916 → 1980
$756
$100 in 1980 → 1916
$13.23
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1980
Between 1916 and 1980, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 82.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 656.0%, which works out to an average of
3.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.13 buys in 1980: the 1916 dollar
lost 86.8% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 1980 at the same ratio, 7.56: $1,000 becomes
$7,560, and $10,000 becomes $75,596.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1980
$1.00
$7.56
$5.00
$37.80
$10.00
$75.60
$20.00
$151
$50.00
$378
$100
$756
$500
$3,780
$1,000
$7,560
$5,000
$37,798
$10,000
$75,596
$100,000
$755,963
$1,000,000
$7,559,633
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1980
Between 1916 and 1980, food rose the most, up 668.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 441.1%, against 656.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1980, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.21%
$756
Food
3.24%
$768
Apparel
2.67%
$541
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 1980
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 1916–1980 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$756
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $179 by
1946, on its way to $756 in 1980; 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: 1980
In 1980, prices rose 13.5% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $756; the year's average CPI of 82.4 is the level
behind every 1980 figure on this page.
1980 sat at the very peak of the Great Inflation. Prices rose 13.5% in that
single year, mortgage rates were climbing toward 16%, and the Federal Reserve
under Paul Volcker was administering the painful interest-rate medicine that
would finally break the inflationary spiral, at the cost of the deep 1981–82
recession. No single year looms larger in how Americans think about inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1980: $100 is worth $756 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1980/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1980. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1980/