$100 in 1916 is worth $1,360 in 1994,
because prices increased 1259.6% over that period, an average of
3.40% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$1,360
in 1994
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1259.6%
Average inflation rate
3.40% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,360
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,260
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1994
148.2
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1994
2.56%
$100 in 1916 → 1994
$1,360
$100 in 1994 → 1916
$7.35
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1994
Between 1916 and 1994, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 148.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1259.6%, which works out to an average of
3.40% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.07 buys in 1994: the 1916 dollar
lost 92.6% of its purchasing power over
these 78 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 1994 at the same ratio, 13.60: $1,000 becomes
$13,596, and $10,000 becomes $135,963.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1994
$1.00
$13.60
$5.00
$67.98
$10.00
$136
$20.00
$272
$50.00
$680
$100
$1,360
$500
$6,798
$1,000
$13,596
$5,000
$67,982
$10,000
$135,963
$100,000
$1,359,633
$1,000,000
$13,596,330
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1994
Between 1916 and 1994, food rose the most, up 1177.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 694.0%, against 1259.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1994, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.40%
$1,360
Food
3.32%
$1,277
Apparel
2.69%
$794
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 1994
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 1916–1994 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
1990–1994
3.19%
13.4%
$1,360
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $250 by
1956, on its way to $1,360 in 1994; 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: 1994
In 1994, prices rose 2.6% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $1,360; the year's average CPI of 148.2 is the level
behind every 1994 figure on this page.
Gas averaged $1.11 a gallon in 1994, a new home cost roughly $130,000, and the median household
earned about $32,300. Inflation ran at 2.6% for the year, the calmest reading since the
mid-1980s, even as the Federal Reserve spent the year raising interest rates precisely to keep
it that way. Chair Alan Greenspan’s Fed lifted the federal funds rate from 3% to 5.5% over six
moves, a preemptive tightening campaign meant to head off inflation before it built rather than
react to it after the fact. The bond market, unprepared for such a rapid climb, sold off
sharply, and the higher rates rippled into places few had expected: Orange County, California,
whose investment pool had bet heavily on rates staying low, filed for bankruptcy in December
after losing an estimated $1.7 billion, the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country’s
history at the time. On the trade front, NAFTA took effect January 1, phasing out tariffs on
thousands of goods moving between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, the start of a schedule that
would eliminate most remaining barriers over the following decade. It was a year that showed
inflation control could have its own costs, paid out in the bond market and, in Orange County’s
case, a bankruptcy court.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1994: $100 is worth $1,360 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1994/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1994. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1994/