$100 in 1918 is worth $1,714 in 2020,
because prices increased 1614.0% over that period, an average of
2.82% a year.
$100 in 1918 has
the same buying power as
$1,714
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1614.0%
Average inflation rate
2.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,714
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,614
CPI in 1918
15.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1918
17.97%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1918 → 2020
$1,714
$100 in 2020 → 1918
$5.83
What happened to prices between 1918 and 2020
Between 1918 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1614.0%, which works out to an average of
2.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1918 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2020: the 1918 dollar
lost 94.2% of its purchasing power over
these 102 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 2020 at the same ratio, 17.14: $1,000 becomes
$17,140, and $10,000 becomes $171,398.
Amount in 1918
Value in 2020
$1.00
$17.14
$5.00
$85.70
$10.00
$171
$20.00
$343
$50.00
$857
$100
$1,714
$500
$8,570
$1,000
$17,140
$5,000
$85,699
$10,000
$171,398
$100,000
$1,713,980
$1,000,000
$17,139,801
Inflation by spending category, 1918–2020
Between 1918 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1500.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 332.5%, against 1614.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1918
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1918 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.82%
$1,714
Food
2.76%
$1,600
Apparel
1.45%
$433
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 2020
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 1918–2020 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$866
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,140
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,444
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,714
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1918
$100 from 1918 had already become $230 by
1968, on its way to $1,714 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1918 had the buying
power of $1,714; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1918 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,714 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1918 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1918-to-2020/