$100 in 1920 is worth $1,125 in 2011,
because prices increased 1024.7% over that period, an average of
2.70% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$1,125
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1024.7%
Average inflation rate
2.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,125
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,025
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1920 → 2011
$1,125
$100 in 2011 → 1920
$8.89
What happened to prices between 1920 and 2011
Between 1920 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1024.7%, which works out to an average of
2.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2011: the 1920 dollar
lost 91.1% of its purchasing power over
these 91 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 2011 at the same ratio, 11.25: $1,000 becomes
$11,247, and $10,000 becomes $112,470.
Amount in 1920
Value in 2011
$1.00
$11.25
$5.00
$56.23
$10.00
$112
$20.00
$225
$50.00
$562
$100
$1,125
$500
$5,623
$1,000
$11,247
$5,000
$56,235
$10,000
$112,470
$100,000
$1,124,695
$1,000,000
$11,246,950
Inflation by spending category, 1920–2011
Between 1920 and 2011, food rose the most, up 985.0%, while apparel rose the least, up 183.3%, against 1024.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.70%
$1,125
Food
2.65%
$1,085
Apparel
1.15%
$283
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 2011
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 1920–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,090
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,125
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $158 by
1965, on its way to $1,125 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $1,125; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,125 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2011/