$100 in 1920 is worth $86.50 in 1943,
because prices declined 13.5% over that period, an average of
0.63% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$86.50
in 1943
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-13.5%
Average inflation rate
-0.63% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$86.50
Price difference ($100 base)
-$13.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1943
17.3
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1943
6.13%
$100 in 1920 → 1943
$86.50
$100 in 1943 → 1920
$116
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1943
Between 1920 and 1943, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 17.3.
Cumulatively, prices declined 13.5%, which works out to an average of
-0.63% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.16 buys in 1943: the 1920 dollar
gained 15.6% in purchasing power over
these 23 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 1943 at the same ratio, 0.86: $1,000 becomes
$865, and $10,000 becomes $8,650.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1943
$1.00
$0.87
$5.00
$4.33
$10.00
$8.65
$20.00
$17.30
$50.00
$43.25
$100
$86.50
$500
$433
$1,000
$865
$5,000
$4,325
$10,000
$8,650
$100,000
$86,500
$1,000,000
$865,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1943
Every category fell between 1920 and 1943: apparel the most, down 35.5%, and food the least, down 18.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1943, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.63%
$86.50
Food
-0.89%
$81.43
Apparel
-1.89%
$64.50
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 1943
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 7.31% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1943 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$70.00
1940–1943
7.31%
23.6%
$86.50
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $76.00 by
1931, on its way to $86.50 in 1943; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1943, prices rose 6.1% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $86.50; the year's average CPI of 17.3 is the level
behind every 1943 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1943, a slower pace than 1942’s
surge but still well above anything the country had seen before the war.
The slowdown owed largely to the “Hold the Line” order, issued that April,
which froze most wages, prices, and rents at their current levels after the
previous year’s jump showed how far demand had outrun the existing
controls. Rationing grew more sophisticated alongside the freeze: starting
in February, a points system split scarce goods into red points for meat,
butter, and other fats and blue points for canned and processed foods,
letting households budget across categories instead of simply going without
once a flat quota ran dry. The government also changed how it collected the
taxes paying for all of it. The Current Tax Payment Act, signed June 9,
required employers to withhold federal income tax directly from paychecks
for the first time, smoothing the flow of wartime revenue and creating the
pay-as-you-go system still used today. Consumer prices stood 74.7% above
their 1913 level and 33.1% above 1933’s
Depression-era low. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum
wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1943: $100 is worth $86.50 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1943/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1943. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1943/