$100 in 1920 is worth $76.00 in 1931,
because prices declined 24.0% over that period, an average of
2.46% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$76.00
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-24.0%
Average inflation rate
-2.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$76.00
Price difference ($100 base)
-$24.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1920 → 1931
$76.00
$100 in 1931 → 1920
$132
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1931
Between 1920 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices declined 24.0%, which works out to an average of
-2.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.32 buys in 1931: the 1920 dollar
gained 31.6% in purchasing power over
these 11 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 1931 at the same ratio, 0.76: $1,000 becomes
$760, and $10,000 becomes $7,600.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1931
$1.00
$0.76
$5.00
$3.80
$10.00
$7.60
$20.00
$15.20
$50.00
$38.00
$100
$76.00
$500
$380
$1,000
$760
$5,000
$3,800
$10,000
$7,600
$100,000
$76,000
$1,000,000
$760,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1931
Every category fell between 1920 and 1931: apparel the most, down 49.0%, and food the least, down 38.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.46%
$76.00
Food
-4.33%
$61.43
Apparel
-5.93%
$51.04
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–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1931
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.8% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1931 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$76.00
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $87.50 by
1925, on its way to $76.00 in 1931; 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 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $76.00; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1931: $100 is worth $76.00 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1931/