$100 in 1919 is worth $173 in 1961,
because prices increased 72.8% over that period, an average of
1.31% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$173
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
72.8%
Average inflation rate
1.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$173
Price difference ($100 base)
$72.83
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1919 → 1961
$173
$100 in 1961 → 1919
$57.86
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1961
Between 1919 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 72.8%, which works out to an average of
1.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.58 buys in 1961: the 1919 dollar
lost 42.1% of its purchasing power over
these 42 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.73: $1,000 becomes
$1,728, and $10,000 becomes $17,283.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.73
$5.00
$8.64
$10.00
$17.28
$20.00
$34.57
$50.00
$86.42
$100
$173
$500
$864
$1,000
$1,728
$5,000
$8,642
$10,000
$17,283
$100,000
$172,832
$1,000,000
$1,728,324
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1961
Between 1919 and 1961, food rose the most, up 63.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 27.3%, against 72.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.31%
$173
Food
1.18%
$163
Apparel
0.58%
$127
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 1961
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 1919–1961 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$139
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$171
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$173
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $80.35 by
1939, on its way to $173 in 1961; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $173; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 1961: $100 is worth $173 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1961/