$100 in 1917 is worth $186 in 1949,
because prices increased 85.9% over that period, an average of
1.96% a year.
$100 in 1917 has
the same buying power as
$186
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
85.9%
Average inflation rate
1.96% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$186
Price difference ($100 base)
$85.94
CPI in 1917
12.8
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1917
17.43%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1917 → 1949
$186
$100 in 1949 → 1917
$53.78
What happened to prices between 1917 and 1949
Between 1917 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 12.8 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 85.9%, which works out to an average of
1.96% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1917 bought what
$0.54 buys in 1949: the 1917 dollar
lost 46.2% of its purchasing power over
these 32 years.
1917 is when World War I inflation stopped being a background trend and
became the dominant fact of American economic life. Consumer prices rose
17.4% for the year, more than double the previous year’s already sharp
increase, as the country’s April 6 entry into the war layered federal war
spending on top of an economy already strained by military demand and
worker shortages. Congress paid for the war with the War Revenue Act that
October, which sharply raised income taxes, created a new tax on wartime
business profits, and, in a small but very visible change for ordinary
households, raised the cost of a first-class stamp from 2 cents to 3 cents
that November, the rate’s first move since 1885. Herbert Hoover took over
the new Food Administration in August and asked Americans to conserve food
voluntarily rather than face formal rationing, a campaign that became
famous enough that “Hooverize” entered the language as a verb for cutting
back. None of it slowed prices much: the 17.4% increase would be topped
again the very next year, in 1918.
Every 1917 amount converts to 1949 at the same ratio, 1.86: $1,000 becomes
$1,859, and $10,000 becomes $18,594.
Amount in 1917
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.86
$5.00
$9.30
$10.00
$18.59
$20.00
$37.19
$50.00
$92.97
$100
$186
$500
$930
$1,000
$1,859
$5,000
$9,297
$10,000
$18,594
$100,000
$185,938
$1,000,000
$1,859,375
Inflation by spending category, 1917–1949
Between 1917 and 1949, apparel rose the most, up 102.0%, while food rose the least, up 72.4%, against 85.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1917
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1917 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.96%
$186
Apparel
2.22%
$202
Food
1.72%
$172
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1917: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1917 to 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.04% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1917–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1917, at end
1917–1920
16.04%
56.3%
$156
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$130
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$109
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$186
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1917
$100 from 1917 had already become $102 by
1933, on its way to $186 in 1949; 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 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1949
In 1949, prices fell 1.2% and $100 from 1917 had the buying
power of $186; the year's average CPI of 23.8 is the level
behind every 1949 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1917 to 1949: $100 is worth $186 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1917 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1949/