$100 in 1918 is worth $158 in 1949,
because prices increased 57.6% over that period, an average of
1.48% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$158
in 1949
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
57.6%
Average inflation rate
1.48% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$158
Price difference ($100 base)
$57.62
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1949
23.8
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
$100 in 1918 → 1949
$158
$100 in 1949 → 1918
$63.45
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1949
Between 1918 and 1949, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 23.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 57.6%, which works out to an average of
1.48% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1949: the 1918 dollar
lost 36.6% of its purchasing power over
these 31 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 1949 at the same ratio, 1.58: $1,000 becomes
$1,576, and $10,000 becomes $15,762.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1949
$1.00
$1.58
$5.00
$7.88
$10.00
$15.76
$20.00
$31.52
$50.00
$78.81
$100
$158
$500
$788
$1,000
$1,576
$5,000
$7,881
$10,000
$15,762
$100,000
$157,616
$1,000,000
$1,576,159
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1949
Between 1918 and 1949, food rose the most, up 49.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 49.5%, against 57.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1949, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.48%
$158
Food
1.31%
$150
Apparel
1.30%
$149
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 1949
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.09% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1918–1949 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1918, at end
1918–1920
15.09%
32.5%
$132
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$111
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$92.72
1940–1949
6.07%
70.0%
$158
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $88.74 by
1934, on its way to $158 in 1949; 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.
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 1918 had the buying
power of $158; 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 1918 to 1949: $100 is worth $158 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1949/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1949. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1949/