$100 in 1919 is worth $116 in 1920,
because prices increased 15.6% over that period, an average of
15.61% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$116
in 1920
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
15.6%
Average inflation rate
15.61% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$116
Price difference ($100 base)
$15.61
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1920
20
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
$100 in 1919 → 1920
$116
$100 in 1920 → 1919
$86.50
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1920
Between 1919 and 1920, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 20.
Cumulatively, prices increased 15.6%, which works out to an average of
15.61% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.87 buys in 1920: the 1919 dollar
lost 13.5% of its purchasing power over
these 1 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1920 at the same ratio, 1.16: $1,000 becomes
$1,156, and $10,000 becomes $11,561.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1920
$1.00
$1.16
$5.00
$5.78
$10.00
$11.56
$20.00
$23.12
$50.00
$57.80
$100
$116
$500
$578
$1,000
$1,156
$5,000
$5,780
$10,000
$11,561
$100,000
$115,607
$1,000,000
$1,156,069
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1920
Between 1919 and 1920, apparel rose the most, up 19.1%, while food rose the least, up 12.9%, against 15.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1920, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
15.61%
$116
Apparel
19.06%
$119
Food
12.90%
$113
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919grew to $116 by 1920; each row
shows the CPI, that year's inflation rate, and the running value.
In 1920, prices rose 15.6% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $116; the year's average CPI of 20 is the level
behind every 1920 figure on this page.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1920: $100 is worth $116 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1920/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1920. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1920/