$100 in 1920 is worth $1,073 in 2009,
because prices increased 972.7% over that period, an average of
2.70% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$1,073
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
972.7%
Average inflation rate
2.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,073
Price difference ($100 base)
$973
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1920 → 2009
$1,073
$100 in 2009 → 1920
$9.32
What happened to prices between 1920 and 2009
Between 1920 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 972.7%, which works out to an average of
2.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2009: the 1920 dollar
lost 90.7% of its purchasing power over
these 89 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 2009 at the same ratio, 10.73: $1,000 becomes
$10,727, and $10,000 becomes $107,269.
Amount in 1920
Value in 2009
$1.00
$10.73
$5.00
$53.63
$10.00
$107
$20.00
$215
$50.00
$536
$100
$1,073
$500
$5,363
$1,000
$10,727
$5,000
$53,634
$10,000
$107,269
$100,000
$1,072,685
$1,000,000
$10,726,850
Inflation by spending category, 1920–2009
Between 1920 and 2009, food rose the most, up 937.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 178.6%, against 972.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.70%
$1,073
Food
2.66%
$1,038
Apparel
1.16%
$279
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 2009
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1920s (1.8% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–2009 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$194
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$412
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$653
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$861
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,073
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $158 by
1965, on its way to $1,073 in 2009; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $1,073; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,073 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2009/