$100 in 1919 is worth $102 in 1944,
because prices increased 1.7% over that period, an average of
0.07% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.7%
Average inflation rate
0.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.73
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1919 → 1944
$102
$100 in 1944 → 1919
$98.30
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1944
Between 1919 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.7%, which works out to an average of
0.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1944: the 1919 dollar
lost 1.7% of its purchasing power over
these 25 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,017, and $10,000 becomes $10,173.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.09
$10.00
$10.17
$20.00
$20.35
$50.00
$50.87
$100
$102
$500
$509
$1,000
$1,017
$5,000
$5,087
$10,000
$10,173
$100,000
$101,734
$1,000,000
$1,017,341
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1944
Every category fell between 1919 and 1944: apparel the most, down 17.7%, and food the least, down 9.1%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.07%
$102
Food
-0.38%
$90.86
Apparel
-0.78%
$82.32
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 1944
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 1919–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$102
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $87.86 by
1931, on its way to $102 in 1944; 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 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $102; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1944: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1944/