$100 in 1916 is worth $1,495 in 1998,
because prices increased 1395.4% over that period, an average of
3.35% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$1,495
in 1998
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1395.4%
Average inflation rate
3.35% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,495
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,395
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 1998
163
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 1998
1.56%
$100 in 1916 → 1998
$1,495
$100 in 1998 → 1916
$6.69
What happened to prices between 1916 and 1998
Between 1916 and 1998, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 163.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1395.4%, which works out to an average of
3.35% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.07 buys in 1998: the 1916 dollar
lost 93.3% of its purchasing power over
these 82 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 1998 at the same ratio, 14.95: $1,000 becomes
$14,954, and $10,000 becomes $149,541.
Amount in 1916
Value in 1998
$1.00
$14.95
$5.00
$74.77
$10.00
$150
$20.00
$299
$50.00
$748
$100
$1,495
$500
$7,477
$1,000
$14,954
$5,000
$74,771
$10,000
$149,541
$100,000
$1,495,413
$1,000,000
$14,954,128
Inflation by spending category, 1916–1998
Between 1916 and 1998, food rose the most, up 1322.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 691.7%, against 1395.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 1998, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.35%
$1,495
Food
3.29%
$1,422
Apparel
2.56%
$792
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 1998
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 1916–1998 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
1990–1998
2.80%
24.7%
$1,495
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $250 by
1956, on its way to $1,495 in 1998; 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: 1998
In 1998, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $1,495; the year's average CPI of 163 is the level
behind every 1998 figure on this page.
The median household earned about $38,900 in 1998, gas averaged just $1.06 a gallon, its
cheapest of the decade, and a new home cost roughly $152,500. Inflation ran at 1.6% for the
year, the lowest of the 1990s, as a glut of crude oil, worsened by weak demand from Asia’s
slowdown, pushed prices below $11 a barrel by December and pulled pump prices down with them.
The calm at home came alongside real turmoil abroad: in August, Russia devalued the ruble and
defaulted on its domestic debt, rattling markets already unsettled by the Asian financial
crisis, and in September the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management collapsed after its highly
leveraged bets went bad, prompting the Federal Reserve to organize a private-sector bailout by
more than a dozen banks to prevent a disorderly unwinding of its roughly $100 billion in
positions. The Fed also cut interest rates three times that fall, in September, October, and
November, an insurance policy against the global financial turmoil spreading to the U.S.
economy. Cheap oil and a well-timed set of rate cuts left 1998 as a year the U.S. economy
absorbed two foreign financial crises without much of a dent at home.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 1998: $100 is worth $1,495 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1998/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 1998. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-1998/