$100 in 1919 is worth $129 in 1947,
because prices increased 28.9% over that period, an average of
0.91% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$129
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
28.9%
Average inflation rate
0.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$129
Price difference ($100 base)
$28.90
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1919 → 1947
$129
$100 in 1947 → 1919
$77.58
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1947
Between 1919 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 28.9%, which works out to an average of
0.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1947: the 1919 dollar
lost 22.4% of its purchasing power over
these 28 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.29: $1,000 becomes
$1,289, and $10,000 becomes $12,890.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.29
$5.00
$6.45
$10.00
$12.89
$20.00
$25.78
$50.00
$64.45
$100
$129
$500
$645
$1,000
$1,289
$5,000
$6,445
$10,000
$12,890
$100,000
$128,902
$1,000,000
$1,289,017
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1947
Between 1919 and 1947, food rose the most, up 29.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 10.2%, against 28.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.91%
$129
Food
0.93%
$130
Apparel
0.35%
$110
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 1947
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 1919–1947 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
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$129
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $75.14 by
1933, on its way to $129 in 1947; 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 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $129; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1947: $100 is worth $129 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1947/