$100 in 1916 is worth $1,326 in 1993,
because prices increased 1225.7% over that period, an average of
3.41% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$1,326
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1225.7%
Average inflation rate
3.41% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,326
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,226
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1916 → 1993
$1,326
$100 in 1993 → 1916
$7.54
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1993
Between 1916 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1225.7%, which works out to an average of
3.41% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.08 buys in 1993: the 1916 dollar
lost 92.5% of its purchasing power over
these 77 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 1993 at the same ratio, 13.26: $1,000 becomes
$13,257, and $10,000 becomes $132,569.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1993
$1.00
$13.26
$5.00
$66.28
$10.00
$133
$20.00
$265
$50.00
$663
$100
$1,326
$500
$6,628
$1,000
$13,257
$5,000
$66,284
$10,000
$132,569
$100,000
$1,325,688
$1,000,000
$13,256,881
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1993
Between 1916 and 1993, food rose the most, up 1146.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 695.8%, against 1225.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.41%
$1,326
Food
3.33%
$1,247
Apparel
2.73%
$796
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 1993
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 1916–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$1,199
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$1,326
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $250 by
1956, on its way to $1,326 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $1,326; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1993: $100 is worth $1,326 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1993/