$100 in 1916 is worth $2,064 in 2011,
because prices increased 1963.7% over that period, an average of
3.24% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$2,064
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1963.7%
Average inflation rate
3.24% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,064
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,964
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1916 → 2011
$2,064
$100 in 2011 → 1916
$4.85
What happened to prices between 1916 and 2011
Between 1916 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1963.7%, which works out to an average of
3.24% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.05 buys in 2011: the 1916 dollar
lost 95.2% of its purchasing power over
these 95 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 2011 at the same ratio, 20.64: $1,000 becomes
$20,637, and $10,000 becomes $206,366.
Amount in 1916
Value in 2011
$1.00
$20.64
$5.00
$103
$10.00
$206
$20.00
$413
$50.00
$1,032
$100
$2,064
$500
$10,318
$1,000
$20,637
$5,000
$103,183
$10,000
$206,366
$100,000
$2,063,661
$1,000,000
$20,636,606
Inflation by spending category, 1916–2011
Between 1916 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1916.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 626.9%, against 1963.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.24%
$2,064
Food
3.21%
$2,016
Apparel
2.11%
$727
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 2011
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 1916–2011 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,580
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$2,001
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$2,064
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $274 by
1961, on its way to $2,064 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $2,064; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 2011: $100 is worth $2,064 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-2011/