$100 in 1919 is worth $80.92 in 1940,
because prices declined 19.1% over that period, an average of
1.00% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$80.92
in 1940
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-19.1%
Average inflation rate
-1.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$80.92
Price difference ($100 base)
-$19.08
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1940
14
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1940
0.72%
$100 in 1919 → 1940
$80.92
$100 in 1940 → 1919
$124
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1940
Between 1919 and 1940, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 14.
Cumulatively, prices declined 19.1%, which works out to an average of
-1.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.24 buys in 1940: the 1919 dollar
gained 23.6% in purchasing power over
these 21 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 1940 at the same ratio, 0.81: $1,000 becomes
$809, and $10,000 becomes $8,092.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1940
$1.00
$0.81
$5.00
$4.05
$10.00
$8.09
$20.00
$16.18
$50.00
$40.46
$100
$80.92
$500
$405
$1,000
$809
$5,000
$4,046
$10,000
$8,092
$100,000
$80,925
$1,000,000
$809,249
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1940
Every category fell between 1919 and 1940: apparel the most, down 39.8%, and food the least, down 35.5%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1940, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.00%
$80.92
Food
-2.07%
$64.52
Apparel
-2.39%
$60.22
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 1940
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1940 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
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.92
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 $80.92 in 1940; 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 1940, prices rose 0.7% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $80.92; the year's average CPI of 14 is the level
behind every 1940 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.7% in 1940, snapping 1939’s decline
and marking the first increase since 1937. The gain was modest, and the CPI
still stood 18.1% below its 1929 peak, a reminder of how far
the recovery from the Depression’s trough had left to go even as defense
orders from Britain and France began reaching American factories. War was
already reshaping domestic policy well before it touched American soil.
Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act that September, the
country’s first peacetime draft, requiring men aged 21 to 35 to register and
authorizing the induction of up to 900,000 men a year, more than a year
before Pearl Harbor. That November, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented
third term, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie after campaigning on
keeping the United States out of the war then consuming Europe and Asia. The
promise would not hold much longer: within two years, wartime demand would
push consumer prices up faster than at any point since the aftermath of
World War I. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the federal minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour, the level set the previous October under
the Fair Labor Standards Act.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1940: $100 is worth $80.92 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1940/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1940. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1940/