$100 in 1916 is worth $1,138 in 1989,
because prices increased 1037.6% over that period, an average of
3.39% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$1,138
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1037.6%
Average inflation rate
3.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,138
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,038
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1916 → 1989
$1,138
$100 in 1989 → 1916
$8.79
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1989
Between 1916 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1037.6%, which works out to an average of
3.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.09 buys in 1989: the 1916 dollar
lost 91.2% of its purchasing power over
these 73 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 1989 at the same ratio, 11.38: $1,000 becomes
$11,376, and $10,000 becomes $113,761.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1989
$1.00
$11.38
$5.00
$56.88
$10.00
$114
$20.00
$228
$50.00
$569
$100
$1,138
$500
$5,688
$1,000
$11,376
$5,000
$56,881
$10,000
$113,761
$100,000
$1,137,615
$1,000,000
$11,376,147
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1989
Between 1916 and 1989, food rose the most, up 1007.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 606.0%, against 1037.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.39%
$1,138
Food
3.35%
$1,107
Apparel
2.71%
$706
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 1989
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 1916–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$1,138
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $239 by
1951, on its way to $1,138 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $1,138; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1989: $100 is worth $1,138 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1989/