$100 in 1918 is worth $117 in 1926,
because prices increased 17.2% over that period, an average of
2.01% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$117
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
17.2%
Average inflation rate
2.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$117
Price difference ($100 base)
$17.22
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1918 → 1926
$117
$100 in 1926 → 1918
$85.31
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1926
Between 1918 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 17.2%, which works out to an average of
2.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.85 buys in 1926: the 1918 dollar
lost 14.7% of its purchasing power over
these 8 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 1926 at the same ratio, 1.17: $1,000 becomes
$1,172, and $10,000 becomes $11,722.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1926
$1.00
$1.17
$5.00
$5.86
$10.00
$11.72
$20.00
$23.44
$50.00
$58.61
$100
$117
$500
$586
$1,000
$1,172
$5,000
$5,861
$10,000
$11,722
$100,000
$117,219
$1,000,000
$1,172,185
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1926
Between 1918 and 1926, food rose the most, up 1.8%, while apparel fell 5.1%, against 17.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.01%
$117
Food
0.22%
$102
Apparel
-0.66%
$94.87
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 1926
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1926 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1926
-2.02%
-11.5%
$117
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $111 by
1922, on its way to $117 in 1926; 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 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $117; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1926: $100 is worth $117 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1926/