$100 in 1916 is worth $1,085 in 1988,
because prices increased 985.3% over that period, an average of
3.37% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$1,085
in 1988
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
985.3%
Average inflation rate
3.37% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,085
Price difference ($100 base)
$985
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1988
118.3
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1988
4.14%
$100 in 1916 → 1988
$1,085
$100 in 1988 → 1916
$9.21
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1988
Between 1916 and 1988, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 118.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 985.3%, which works out to an average of
3.37% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1988: the 1916 dollar
lost 90.8% of its purchasing power over
these 72 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 1988 at the same ratio, 10.85: $1,000 becomes
$10,853, and $10,000 becomes $108,532.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1988
$1.00
$10.85
$5.00
$54.27
$10.00
$109
$20.00
$217
$50.00
$543
$100
$1,085
$500
$5,427
$1,000
$10,853
$5,000
$54,266
$10,000
$108,532
$100,000
$1,085,321
$1,000,000
$10,853,211
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1988
Between 1916 and 1988, food rose the most, up 946.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 586.9%, against 985.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1988, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.37%
$1,085
Food
3.31%
$1,046
Apparel
2.71%
$687
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 1988
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 1916–1988 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
1980–1988
4.62%
43.6%
$1,085
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $239 by
1951, on its way to $1,085 in 1988; 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: 1988
In 1988, prices rose 4.1% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $1,085; the year's average CPI of 118.3 is the level
behind every 1988 figure on this page.
By 1988, the economic expansion that began in the ashes of the 1981-82
recession was in its sixth year, and the Federal Reserve was watching for
signs it had run too long. Inflation rose to 4.1%, up from 3.6% the year
before, while unemployment fell to its lowest level since 1974. Alan
Greenspan’s Fed responded by raising the federal funds rate through the
year, from about 6.5% to 8.5%, trying to cool demand before prices
accelerated the way they had in the 1970s. Households still felt the
difference between this expansion and the last one: gas held near 90 cents
a gallon, almost exactly its 1987 price, and median household income rose
to roughly $27,200. The one price that moved was postage, which rose from
22 to 25 cents in April, the fourth increase of the decade but a far
gentler pace than the string of increases in the late 1970s and early
1980s. In November, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency on
the strength of the expansion, promising in his nomination speech to hold
the line on taxes. Both the boom and that pledge would run into trouble
within two years, as the Fed’s rate increases helped tip the economy toward
the 1990-91 recession.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1988: $100 is worth $1,085 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1988/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1988. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1988/