$100 in 1916 is worth $885 in 1982,
because prices increased 785.3% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$885
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
785.3%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$885
Price difference ($100 base)
$785
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1916 → 1982
$885
$100 in 1982 → 1916
$11.30
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1982
Between 1916 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 785.3%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1982: the 1916 dollar
lost 88.7% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 1982 at the same ratio, 8.85: $1,000 becomes
$8,853, and $10,000 becomes $88,532.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1982
$1.00
$8.85
$5.00
$44.27
$10.00
$88.53
$20.00
$177
$50.00
$443
$100
$885
$500
$4,427
$1,000
$8,853
$5,000
$44,266
$10,000
$88,532
$100,000
$885,321
$1,000,000
$8,853,211
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1982
Between 1916 and 1982, food rose the most, up 761.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 482.1%, against 785.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$885
Food
3.32%
$862
Apparel
2.70%
$582
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 1982
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 1916–1982 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
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$885
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $239 by
1951, on its way to $885 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $885; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1982: $100 is worth $885 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1982/