$100 in 1919 is worth $98.84 in 1929,
because prices declined 1.2% over that period, an average of
0.12% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$98.84
in 1929
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-1.2%
Average inflation rate
-0.12% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$98.84
Price difference ($100 base)
-$1.16
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1929
17.1
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1929
0.00%
$100 in 1919 → 1929
$98.84
$100 in 1929 → 1919
$101
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1929
Between 1919 and 1929, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 1.2%, which works out to an average of
-0.12% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.01 buys in 1929: the 1919 dollar
gained 1.2% in purchasing power over
these 10 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 1929 at the same ratio, 0.99: $1,000 becomes
$988, and $10,000 becomes $9,884.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1929
$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, 1919–1929
Every category fell between 1919 and 1929: apparel the most, down 31.8%, and food the least, down 11.3%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1929, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.12%
$98.84
Food
-1.19%
$88.71
Apparel
-3.75%
$68.23
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 1929
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1929 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1929
-1.73%
-14.5%
$98.84
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $98.84 by
1924, on its way to $98.84 in 1929; 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 1929, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $98.84; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1929 figure on this page.
Consumer prices were unchanged in 1929, the CPI’s annual average flat for
the second time in six years and a fitting close to a decade that began with
wartime inflation and ended in rough price stability. By year’s end the
index stood 14.5% below its 1920 peak and roughly 73% above its
1913 starting point, a reminder that even a “stable” decade
left prices well above where they had started. The stability in the cost of
living masked what was building in financial markets. The National Bureau
of Economic Research dates the start of the Great Depression to that
August, the month the business cycle peaked, months before most Americans
noticed anything was wrong. The break came that October: panic selling hit
Wall Street on Black Thursday, October 24, and returned even worse on Black
Tuesday, October 29, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 12% in
a single session. Billions of dollars in paper wealth disappeared within
days, and the crash marked the start of a downturn that would pull consumer
prices into their steepest sustained decline of the 20th century over the
next four years. First-class postage was still 2 cents, a price that would
hold until 1932.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1929: $100 is worth $98.84 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1929/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1929. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1929/