$100 in 1918 is worth $639 in 1982,
because prices increased 539.1% over that period, an average of
2.94% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$639
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
539.1%
Average inflation rate
2.94% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$639
Price difference ($100 base)
$539
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1918 → 1982
$639
$100 in 1982 → 1918
$15.65
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1982
Between 1918 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 539.1%, which works out to an average of
2.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.16 buys in 1982: the 1918 dollar
lost 84.4% of its purchasing power over
these 64 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 1982 at the same ratio, 6.39: $1,000 becomes
$6,391, and $10,000 becomes $63,907.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1982
$1.00
$6.39
$5.00
$31.95
$10.00
$63.91
$20.00
$128
$50.00
$320
$100
$639
$500
$3,195
$1,000
$6,391
$5,000
$31,954
$10,000
$63,907
$100,000
$639,073
$1,000,000
$6,390,728
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1982
Between 1918 and 1982, food rose the most, up 483.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 258.2%, against 539.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.94%
$639
Food
2.79%
$583
Apparel
2.01%
$358
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 1982
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 1918–1982 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$196
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$257
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$546
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$639
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $160 by
1948, on its way to $639 in 1982; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $639; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1982: $100 is worth $639 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1982/