$100 in 1920 is worth $69.50 in 1939,
because prices declined 30.5% over that period, an average of
1.90% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$69.50
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-30.5%
Average inflation rate
-1.90% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$69.50
Price difference ($100 base)
-$30.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1920 → 1939
$69.50
$100 in 1939 → 1920
$144
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1939
Between 1920 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 30.5%, which works out to an average of
-1.90% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.44 buys in 1939: the 1920 dollar
gained 43.9% in purchasing power over
these 19 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 1939 at the same ratio, 0.70: $1,000 becomes
$695, and $10,000 becomes $6,950.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1939
$1.00
$0.70
$5.00
$3.48
$10.00
$6.95
$20.00
$13.90
$50.00
$34.75
$100
$69.50
$500
$348
$1,000
$695
$5,000
$3,475
$10,000
$6,950
$100,000
$69,500
$1,000,000
$695,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1939
Every category fell between 1920 and 1939: apparel the most, down 49.9%, and food the least, down 43.8%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.90%
$69.50
Food
-2.99%
$56.19
Apparel
-3.57%
$50.12
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 1939
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.8% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1939 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1939
-2.02%
-16.8%
$69.50
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $85.50 by
1929, on its way to $69.50 in 1939; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.6% in 1937, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $69.50; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1939: $100 is worth $69.50 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1939/