$100 in 1920 is worth $88.00 in 1944,
because prices declined 12.0% over that period, an average of
0.53% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$88.00
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-12.0%
Average inflation rate
-0.53% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$88.00
Price difference ($100 base)
-$12.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1920 → 1944
$88.00
$100 in 1944 → 1920
$114
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1944
Between 1920 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices declined 12.0%, which works out to an average of
-0.53% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.14 buys in 1944: the 1920 dollar
gained 13.6% in purchasing power over
these 24 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 1944 at the same ratio, 0.88: $1,000 becomes
$880, and $10,000 becomes $8,800.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1944
$1.00
$0.88
$5.00
$4.40
$10.00
$8.80
$20.00
$17.60
$50.00
$44.00
$100
$88.00
$500
$440
$1,000
$880
$5,000
$4,400
$10,000
$8,800
$100,000
$88,000
$1,000,000
$880,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1944
Every category fell between 1920 and 1944: apparel the most, down 30.9%, and food the least, down 19.5%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.53%
$88.00
Food
-0.90%
$80.48
Apparel
-1.53%
$69.14
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 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.89% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$88.00
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $68.50 by
1932, on its way to $88.00 in 1944; 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 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $88.00; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1944: $100 is worth $88.00 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1944/