$100 in 1919 is worth $80.35 in 1939,
because prices declined 19.7% over that period, an average of
1.09% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$80.35
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-19.7%
Average inflation rate
-1.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$80.35
Price difference ($100 base)
-$19.65
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1919 → 1939
$80.35
$100 in 1939 → 1919
$124
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1939
Between 1919 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 19.7%, which works out to an average of
-1.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.24 buys in 1939: the 1919 dollar
gained 24.5% in purchasing power over
these 20 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 1939 at the same ratio, 0.80: $1,000 becomes
$803, and $10,000 becomes $8,035.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1939
$1.00
$0.80
$5.00
$4.02
$10.00
$8.03
$20.00
$16.07
$50.00
$40.17
$100
$80.35
$500
$402
$1,000
$803
$5,000
$4,017
$10,000
$8,035
$100,000
$80,347
$1,000,000
$803,468
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1939
Every category fell between 1919 and 1939: apparel the most, down 40.3%, and food the least, down 36.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.09%
$80.35
Food
-2.25%
$63.44
Apparel
-2.55%
$59.67
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 1939
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1930s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1939 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
1930–1939
-2.02%
-16.8%
$80.35
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $98.84 by
1929, on its way to $80.35 in 1939; 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 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $80.35; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1939: $100 is worth $80.35 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1939/