$100 in 1916 is worth $2,374 in 2020,
because prices increased 2274.4% over that period, an average of
3.09% a year.
$100 in 1916 has
the same buying power as
$2,374
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2274.4%
Average inflation rate
3.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$2,374
Price difference ($100 base)
$2,274
CPI in 1916
10.9
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1916
7.92%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1916 → 2020
$2,374
$100 in 2020 → 1916
$4.21
What happened to prices between 1916 and 2020
Between 1916 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 10.9 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2274.4%, which works out to an average of
3.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1916 bought what
$0.04 buys in 2020: the 1916 dollar
lost 95.8% of its purchasing power over
these 104 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 2020 at the same ratio, 23.74: $1,000 becomes
$23,744, and $10,000 becomes $237,441.
Amount in 1916
Value in 2020
$1.00
$23.74
$5.00
$119
$10.00
$237
$20.00
$475
$50.00
$1,187
$100
$2,374
$500
$11,872
$1,000
$23,744
$5,000
$118,721
$10,000
$237,441
$100,000
$2,374,413
$1,000,000
$23,744,128
Inflation by spending category, 1916–2020
Between 1916 and 2020, food rose the most, up 2264.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 602.9%, against 2274.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1916
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1916 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.09%
$2,374
Food
3.09%
$2,365
Apparel
1.89%
$703
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 2020
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 1916–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$2,374
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1916
$100 from 1916 had already become $297 by
1966, on its way to $2,374 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1916 had the buying
power of $2,374; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1916 to 2020: $100 is worth $2,374 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1916 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1916-to-2020/