$100 in 1919 is worth $98.84 in 1923,
because prices declined 1.2% over that period, an average of
0.29% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$98.84
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-1.2%
Average inflation rate
-0.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$98.84
Price difference ($100 base)
-$1.16
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1919 → 1923
$98.84
$100 in 1923 → 1919
$101
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1923
Between 1919 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 1.2%, which works out to an average of
-0.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.01 buys in 1923: the 1919 dollar
gained 1.2% in purchasing power over
these 4 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 1923 at the same ratio, 0.99: $1,000 becomes
$988, and $10,000 becomes $9,884.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1923
$1.00
$0.99
$5.00
$4.94
$10.00
$9.88
$20.00
$19.77
$50.00
$49.42
$100
$98.84
$500
$494
$1,000
$988
$5,000
$4,942
$10,000
$9,884
$100,000
$98,844
$1,000,000
$988,439
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1923
Every category fell between 1919 and 1923: apparel the most, down 25.1%, and food the least, down 17.2%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.29%
$98.84
Food
-4.61%
$82.80
Apparel
-6.98%
$74.86
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–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1923
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (5.1% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1923 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1923
-5.09%
-14.5%
$98.84
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $103 by
1921, on its way to $98.84 in 1923; 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.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $98.84; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1923: $100 is worth $98.84 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1923/