$100 in 1918 is worth $113 in 1923,
because prices increased 13.2% over that period, an average of
2.52% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.2%
Average inflation rate
2.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.25
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1918 → 1923
$113
$100 in 1923 → 1918
$88.30
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1923
Between 1918 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.2%, which works out to an average of
2.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1923: the 1918 dollar
lost 11.7% of its purchasing power over
these 5 years.
1918 brought the steepest annual price increase the CPI had recorded:
consumer prices rose 18.0% for the year, edging out 1917’s already sharp
17.4% as the economy stayed at full wartime mobilization for most of the
year. A first-class stamp cost 3 cents, up from 2 cents the previous
November under the War Revenue Act’s wartime tax increases. The war itself
ended on November 11, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allied
powers after more than four years of fighting in Europe, but the inflation
built up over a year and a half of mobilization did not disappear along with
the fighting. The bigger public health story that year was the influenza
pandemic that reached the U.S. in a mild spring wave and then returned that
fall in a far deadlier form, eventually killing roughly 675,000 Americans,
more than the country’s combat losses in the war. It hit factories, docks,
and shops alongside households, adding disruption to an economy already
strained by wartime demand. Prices would keep climbing even after the
armistice, into the postwar surge of 1919.
Every 1918 amount converts to 1923 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,132, and $10,000 becomes $11,325.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1923
$1.00
$1.13
$5.00
$5.66
$10.00
$11.32
$20.00
$22.65
$50.00
$56.62
$100
$113
$500
$566
$1,000
$1,132
$5,000
$5,662
$10,000
$11,325
$100,000
$113,245
$1,000,000
$1,132,450
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1923
Every category fell between 1918 and 1923: food the most, down 7.8%, and apparel the least, down 0.7%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.52%
$113
Apparel
-0.15%
$99.27
Food
-1.61%
$92.22
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1918: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1918 to 1923
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (5.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1923 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1923
-5.09%
-14.5%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $132 by
1920, on its way to $113 in 1923; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $113; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1923: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1923/