$100 in 1918 is worth $821 in 1989,
because prices increased 721.2% over that period, an average of
3.01% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$821
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
721.2%
Average inflation rate
3.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$821
Price difference ($100 base)
$721
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1918 → 1989
$821
$100 in 1989 → 1918
$12.18
What happened to prices between 1918 and 1989
Between 1918 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 721.2%, which works out to an average of
3.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1989: the 1918 dollar
lost 87.8% of its purchasing power over
these 71 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 1989 at the same ratio, 8.21: $1,000 becomes
$8,212, and $10,000 becomes $82,119.
Amount in 1918
Value in 1989
$1.00
$8.21
$5.00
$41.06
$10.00
$82.12
$20.00
$164
$50.00
$411
$100
$821
$500
$4,106
$1,000
$8,212
$5,000
$41,060
$10,000
$82,119
$100,000
$821,192
$1,000,000
$8,211,921
Inflation by spending category, 1918–1989
Between 1918 and 1989, food rose the most, up 649.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 334.4%, against 721.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.01%
$821
Food
2.88%
$749
Apparel
2.09%
$434
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 1989
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 1918–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$821
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $177 by
1953, on its way to $821 in 1989; 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: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $821; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 1989: $100 is worth $821 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-1989/