$100 in 1920 is worth $90.00 in 1945,
because prices declined 10.0% over that period, an average of
0.42% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$90.00
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-10.0%
Average inflation rate
-0.42% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$90.00
Price difference ($100 base)
-$10.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1920 → 1945
$90.00
$100 in 1945 → 1920
$111
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1945
Between 1920 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices declined 10.0%, which works out to an average of
-0.42% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.11 buys in 1945: the 1920 dollar
gained 11.1% in purchasing power over
these 25 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 1945 at the same ratio, 0.90: $1,000 becomes
$900, and $10,000 becomes $9,000.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1945
$1.00
$0.90
$5.00
$4.50
$10.00
$9.00
$20.00
$18.00
$50.00
$45.00
$100
$90.00
$500
$450
$1,000
$900
$5,000
$4,500
$10,000
$9,000
$100,000
$90,000
$1,000,000
$900,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1945
Every category fell between 1920 and 1945: apparel the most, down 27.1%, and food the least, down 17.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.42%
$90.00
Food
-0.77%
$82.38
Apparel
-1.26%
$72.85
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 1945
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.15% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1945 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
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$90.00
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 $90.00 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $90.00; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1945: $100 is worth $90.00 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1945/