$100 in 1919 is worth $87.86 in 1931,
because prices declined 12.1% over that period, an average of
1.07% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$87.86
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-12.1%
Average inflation rate
-1.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$87.86
Price difference ($100 base)
-$12.14
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1919 → 1931
$87.86
$100 in 1931 → 1919
$114
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1931
Between 1919 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices declined 12.1%, which works out to an average of
-1.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.14 buys in 1931: the 1919 dollar
gained 13.8% in purchasing power over
these 12 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 1931 at the same ratio, 0.88: $1,000 becomes
$879, and $10,000 becomes $8,786.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1931
$1.00
$0.88
$5.00
$4.39
$10.00
$8.79
$20.00
$17.57
$50.00
$43.93
$100
$87.86
$500
$439
$1,000
$879
$5,000
$4,393
$10,000
$8,786
$100,000
$87,861
$1,000,000
$878,613
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1931
Every category fell between 1919 and 1931: apparel the most, down 39.2%, and food the least, down 30.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.07%
$87.86
Food
-3.00%
$69.35
Apparel
-4.07%
$60.77
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 1931
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1931 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$87.86
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $101 by
1925, on its way to $87.86 in 1931; 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 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $87.86; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1931: $100 is worth $87.86 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1931/