$100 in 1920 is worth $85.50 in 1924,
because prices declined 14.5% over that period, an average of
3.84% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$85.50
in 1924
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-14.5%
Average inflation rate
-3.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$85.50
Price difference ($100 base)
-$14.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1924
17.1
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1924
0.00%
$100 in 1920 → 1924
$85.50
$100 in 1924 → 1920
$117
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1924
Between 1920 and 1924, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 14.5%, which works out to an average of
-3.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.17 buys in 1924: the 1920 dollar
gained 17.0% in purchasing power over
these 4 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1924 at the same ratio, 0.86: $1,000 becomes
$855, and $10,000 becomes $8,550.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1924
$1.00
$0.86
$5.00
$4.28
$10.00
$8.55
$20.00
$17.10
$50.00
$42.75
$100
$85.50
$500
$428
$1,000
$855
$5,000
$4,275
$10,000
$8,550
$100,000
$85,500
$1,000,000
$855,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1924
Every category fell between 1920 and 1924: apparel the most, down 37.8%, and food the least, down 27.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1924, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-3.84%
$85.50
Food
-7.76%
$72.38
Apparel
-11.20%
$62.18
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $84.00 by
1922, on its way to $85.50 in 1924; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.8% in 1923, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1924, prices rose 0.0% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $85.50; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1924 figure on this page.
Consumer prices held flat in 1924, the CPI’s annual average unchanged from
1923 after swinging from a sharp postwar drop to a modest rise the year
before. That stability, extending the calm that had settled in after the
deflation of 1921 and 1922, became a defining feature of the rest of the
decade. Congress tightened immigration policy further with the Immigration
Act of 1924, signed May 26, which cut the national-origins quota from 3% of
each nationality’s 1910 census population to 2% of its 1890 population,
shifting admissions further toward northern and western Europe and
effectively excluding most immigration from Asia. Abroad, the U.S.-backed
Dawes Plan, adopted that August, reorganized Germany’s war reparations
payments and opened the way for American loans into the German economy,
helping stabilize European currencies after the hyperinflation that had
peaked in 1923. At home, Calvin Coolidge, who had served out
the remainder of Warren Harding’s term after his death the previous year,
won a full term of his own that November, campaigning on continued
prosperity and limited government. First-class postage remained at 2 cents,
a price unchanged since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1924: $100 is worth $85.50 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1924/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1924. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1924/