$100 in 1916 is worth $914 in 1983,
because prices increased 813.8% over that period, an average of
3.36% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$914
in 1983
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
813.8%
Average inflation rate
3.36% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$914
Price difference ($100 base)
$814
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1983
99.6
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1983
3.21%
$100 in 1916 → 1983
$914
$100 in 1983 → 1916
$10.94
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1983
Between 1916 and 1983, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 99.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 813.8%, which works out to an average of
3.36% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1983: the 1916 dollar
lost 89.1% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 1983 at the same ratio, 9.14: $1,000 becomes
$9,138, and $10,000 becomes $91,376.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1983
$1.00
$9.14
$5.00
$45.69
$10.00
$91.38
$20.00
$183
$50.00
$457
$100
$914
$500
$4,569
$1,000
$9,138
$5,000
$45,688
$10,000
$91,376
$100,000
$913,761
$1,000,000
$9,137,615
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1983
Between 1916 and 1983, food rose the most, up 779.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 496.4%, against 813.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1983, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.36%
$914
Food
3.30%
$880
Apparel
2.70%
$596
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 1983
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 1916–1983 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
1980–1983
6.52%
20.9%
$914
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $239 by
1951, on its way to $914 in 1983; 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: 1983
In 1983, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $914; the year's average CPI of 99.6 is the level
behind every 1983 figure on this page.
1983 confirmed that the Volcker disinflation was not a one-year fluke.
Consumer prices rose 3.2% for the year, nearly identical to 1982’s pace and a
fraction of the double-digit rates of 1980 and 1981. With inflation tamed and
interest rates coming down, the economy roared back from the 1981-82
recession: real GDP grew 4.6%, the strongest calendar-year growth since the
1950s, and unemployment fell from its 10.8% peak to 8.3% by December. Housing
and auto sales, both starved of credit during the recession, led the
rebound. In April, Congress and President Reagan enacted the Social Security
Amendments of 1983, a bipartisan rescue of a system projected to run out of
money within months. The law gradually raised the full retirement age from
65 to 67, began taxing benefits for higher-income retirees, and delayed that
year’s cost-of-living adjustment by six months. For a program whose benefits
had been indexed to the CPI since 1975, the amendments were the first major
sign that inflation-proofing Social Security carried a cost Congress could
not simply legislate away. By year’s end, gas averaged $1.16 a gallon and
mailing a letter still cost 20 cents, prices that had barely moved since
1981, a sharp break from the constant increases of the previous decade.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1983: $100 is worth $914 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1983/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1983. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1983/