$100 in 1920 is worth $158 in 1965,
because prices increased 57.5% over that period, an average of
1.01% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$158
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
57.5%
Average inflation rate
1.01% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$158
Price difference ($100 base)
$57.50
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1920 → 1965
$158
$100 in 1965 → 1920
$63.49
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1965
Between 1920 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 57.5%, which works out to an average of
1.01% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.63 buys in 1965: the 1920 dollar
lost 36.5% of its purchasing power over
these 45 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.57: $1,000 becomes
$1,575, and $10,000 becomes $15,750.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.58
$5.00
$7.88
$10.00
$15.75
$20.00
$31.50
$50.00
$78.75
$100
$158
$500
$788
$1,000
$1,575
$5,000
$7,875
$10,000
$15,750
$100,000
$157,500
$1,000,000
$1,575,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1965
Between 1920 and 1965, food rose the most, up 53.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 10.9%, against 57.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.01%
$158
Food
0.95%
$153
Apparel
0.23%
$111
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 1965
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1965 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$121
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$148
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$158
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $81.50 by
1942, on its way to $158 in 1965; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $158; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 1965: $100 is worth $158 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1965/