$100 in 1920 is worth $88.50 in 1926,
because prices declined 11.5% over that period, an average of
2.02% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$88.50
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-11.5%
Average inflation rate
-2.02% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$88.50
Price difference ($100 base)
-$11.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1920 → 1926
$88.50
$100 in 1926 → 1920
$113
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1926
Between 1920 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 11.5%, which works out to an average of
-2.02% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.13 buys in 1926: the 1920 dollar
gained 13.0% in purchasing power over
these 6 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 1926 at the same ratio, 0.89: $1,000 becomes
$885, and $10,000 becomes $8,850.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1926
$1.00
$0.89
$5.00
$4.43
$10.00
$8.85
$20.00
$17.70
$50.00
$44.25
$100
$88.50
$500
$443
$1,000
$885
$5,000
$4,425
$10,000
$8,850
$100,000
$88,500
$1,000,000
$885,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1926
Every category fell between 1920 and 1926: apparel the most, down 39.9%, and food the least, down 19.0%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.02%
$88.50
Food
-3.46%
$80.95
Apparel
-8.14%
$60.09
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 $85.50 by
1923, on its way to $88.50 in 1926; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.3% in 1925, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $88.50; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1926: $100 is worth $88.50 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1926/