$100 in 1920 is worth $1,294 in 2020,
because prices increased 1194.1% over that period, an average of
2.59% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$1,294
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1194.1%
Average inflation rate
2.59% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,294
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,194
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1920 → 2020
$1,294
$100 in 2020 → 1920
$7.73
What happened to prices between 1920 and 2020
Between 1920 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1194.1%, which works out to an average of
2.59% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2020: the 1920 dollar
lost 92.3% of its purchasing power over
these 100 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 2020 at the same ratio, 12.94: $1,000 becomes
$12,941, and $10,000 becomes $129,405.
Amount in 1920
Value in 2020
$1.00
$12.94
$5.00
$64.70
$10.00
$129
$20.00
$259
$50.00
$647
$100
$1,294
$500
$6,470
$1,000
$12,941
$5,000
$64,703
$10,000
$129,405
$100,000
$1,294,055
$1,000,000
$12,940,550
Inflation by spending category, 1920–2020
Between 1920 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1172.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 174.0%, against 1194.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.59%
$1,294
Food
2.58%
$1,272
Apparel
1.01%
$274
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 2020
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 1920–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,294
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $194 by
1970, on its way to $1,294 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $1,294; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1920 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,294 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-2020/