$100 in 1919 is worth $1,496 in 2020,
because prices increased 1396.0% over that period, an average of
2.71% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$1,496
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1396.0%
Average inflation rate
2.71% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,496
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,396
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1919 → 2020
$1,496
$100 in 2020 → 1919
$6.68
What happened to prices between 1919 and 2020
Between 1919 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1396.0%, which works out to an average of
2.71% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2020: the 1919 dollar
lost 93.3% of its purchasing power over
these 101 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 2020 at the same ratio, 14.96: $1,000 becomes
$14,960, and $10,000 becomes $149,602.
Amount in 1919
Value in 2020
$1.00
$14.96
$5.00
$74.80
$10.00
$150
$20.00
$299
$50.00
$748
$100
$1,496
$500
$7,480
$1,000
$14,960
$5,000
$74,801
$10,000
$149,602
$100,000
$1,496,017
$1,000,000
$14,960,173
Inflation by spending category, 1919–2020
Between 1919 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1336.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 226.2%, against 1396.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.71%
$1,496
Food
2.67%
$1,437
Apparel
1.18%
$326
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 2020
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 1919–2020 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$224
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$476
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$755
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$995
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,260
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,496
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $212 by
1969, on its way to $1,496 in 2020; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $1,496; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1919 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,496 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-2020/