$100 in 1918 is worth $193 in 1959,
because prices increased 92.7% over that period, an average of
1.61% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$193
in 1959
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
92.7%
Average inflation rate
1.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$193
Price difference ($100 base)
$92.72
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1959
29.1
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1959
0.69%
$100 in 1918 → 1959
$193
$100 in 1959 → 1918
$51.89
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1959
Between 1918 and 1959, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 29.1.
Cumulatively, prices increased 92.7%, which works out to an average of
1.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.52 buys in 1959: the 1918 dollar
lost 48.1% of its purchasing power over
these 41 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 1959 at the same ratio, 1.93: $1,000 becomes
$1,927, and $10,000 becomes $19,272.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1959
$1.00
$1.93
$5.00
$9.64
$10.00
$19.27
$20.00
$38.54
$50.00
$96.36
$100
$193
$500
$964
$1,000
$1,927
$5,000
$9,636
$10,000
$19,272
$100,000
$192,715
$1,000,000
$1,927,152
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1959
Between 1918 and 1959, food rose the most, up 77.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 64.8%, against 92.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1959, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.61%
$193
Food
1.41%
$178
Apparel
1.23%
$165
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 1959
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 1918–1959 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$160
1950–1959
2.12%
20.7%
$193
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $93.38 by
1938, on its way to $193 in 1959; 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: 1959
In 1959, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $193; the year's average CPI of 29.1 is the level
behind every 1959 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1959, down sharply from 1958’s
2.8% as the economy recovered briskly from the year before’s recession,
with output and employment both rebounding through the year. The map of
the country changed that year for the first time since 1912: Alaska
joined the union January 3, and Hawaii followed August 21, completing the
50-state United States. Ninety miles from Florida, Cuba changed hands
that January, when Fidel Castro’s guerrilla forces overthrew President
Fulgencio Batista, who fled the country on the 1st; Castro entered Havana
on the 8th, beginning a Communist government that would define Cold War
tensions in the hemisphere for decades. Labor and management fought their
longest battle of the postwar era that summer: the United Steelworkers
walked out July 15 in a dispute over work rules, the longest strike in the
industry’s history, before a federal court granted the Eisenhower
administration a Taft-Hartley back-to-work order that November. Consumer
prices finished the decade 193.9% above their 1913 level,
up 20.7% from where they stood in 1950. First-class
postage held at 4 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at $1.00 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1959: $100 is worth $193 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1959/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1959. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1959/