$100 in 1918 is worth $113 in 1929,
because prices increased 13.2% over that period, an average of
1.14% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$113
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
13.2%
Average inflation rate
1.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$113
Price difference ($100 base)
$13.25
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1918 → 1929
$113
$100 in 1929 → 1918
$88.30
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1929
Between 1918 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 13.2%, which works out to an average of
1.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.88 buys in 1929: the 1918 dollar
lost 11.7% of its purchasing power over
these 11 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 1929 at the same ratio, 1.13: $1,000 becomes
$1,132, and $10,000 becomes $11,325.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1929
$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, 1918–1929
Every category fell between 1918 and 1929: apparel the most, down 9.5%, and food the least, down 1.2%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.14%
$113
Food
-0.11%
$98.80
Apparel
-0.91%
$90.48
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 1929
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1929 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1929
-1.73%
-14.5%
$113
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $113 by
1923, on its way to $113 in 1929; 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 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $113; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1929 figure on this page.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1929: $100 is worth $113 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1929/