$100 in 1919 is worth $104 in 1945,
because prices increased 4.0% over that period, an average of
0.15% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.0%
Average inflation rate
0.15% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.05
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1919 → 1945
$104
$100 in 1945 → 1919
$96.11
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1945
Between 1919 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.0%, which works out to an average of
0.15% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1945: the 1919 dollar
lost 3.9% of its purchasing power over
these 26 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,040, and $10,000 becomes $10,405.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.20
$10.00
$10.40
$20.00
$20.81
$50.00
$52.02
$100
$104
$500
$520
$1,000
$1,040
$5,000
$5,202
$10,000
$10,405
$100,000
$104,046
$1,000,000
$1,040,462
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1945
Every category fell between 1919 and 1945: apparel the most, down 13.3%, and food the least, down 7.0%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.15%
$104
Food
-0.28%
$93.01
Apparel
-0.55%
$86.74
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 1945
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 1919–1945 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
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$104
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $79.19 by
1932, on its way to $104 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1945: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1945/