$100 in 1921 is worth $95.53 in 1923,
because prices declined 4.5% over that period, an average of
2.26% a year.
$100 in 1921 has
the same buying power as
$95.53
in 1923
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-4.5%
Average inflation rate
-2.26% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$95.53
Price difference ($100 base)
-$4.47
CPI in 1921
17.9
CPI in 1923
17.1
Inflation in 1921
-10.50%
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
$100 in 1921 → 1923
$95.53
$100 in 1923 → 1921
$105
What happened to prices between 1921 and 1923
Between 1921 and 1923, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.9 to 17.1.
Cumulatively, prices declined 4.5%, which works out to an average of
-2.26% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1921 bought what
$1.05 buys in 1923: the 1921 dollar
gained 4.7% in purchasing power over
these 2 years.
Consumer prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the mirror image of the wartime
inflation that had more than doubled the cost of living between
1913 and 1920. The Depression of 1920-21, one
of the sharpest contractions in U.S. history, bottomed out that July
according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, even though it had
lasted barely eighteen months. Unemployment climbed toward one worker in ten
as businesses cut production and prices to work through wartime inventories,
but the same collapse in prices also meant the recovery, once it started,
had room to run without reigniting inflation. Warren Harding took office
March 4, promising a return to “normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic,
labor unrest, and rapid price swings; his administration moved quickly to
cut top income tax rates and federal spending. Congress also acted on
immigration that year: the Emergency Quota Act, signed May 19, capped annual
arrivals from each country at 3% of that nationality’s population in the
1910 census, the first time the United States had set a numerical ceiling on
immigration. The law favored northern and western Europe and cut total
immigration by more than half compared with prewar levels; Congress
tightened the formula again in 1924. First-class postage held at 2 cents,
unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1921 amount converts to 1923 at the same ratio, 0.96: $1,000 becomes
$955, and $10,000 becomes $9,553.
Amount in 1921
Value in 1923
$1.00
$0.96
$5.00
$4.78
$10.00
$9.55
$20.00
$19.11
$50.00
$47.77
$100
$95.53
$500
$478
$1,000
$955
$5,000
$4,777
$10,000
$9,553
$100,000
$95,531
$1,000,000
$955,307
Inflation by spending category, 1921–1923
Every category fell between 1921 and 1923: apparel the most, down 18.4%, and food the least, down 3.1%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1921
spending costs in 1923, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1921 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.26%
$95.53
Food
-1.58%
$96.86
Apparel
-9.65%
$81.63
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1921: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1921
$100 from 1921 had already become $93.85 by
1922, on its way to $95.53 in 1923; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 1.8% in 1923, and prices fell 6.1% in 1922, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1923, prices rose 1.8% and $100 from 1921 had the buying
power of $95.53; the year's average CPI of 17.1 is the level
behind every 1923 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1921 to 1923: $100 is worth $95.53 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1921-to-1923/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1921 to 1923. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1921-to-1923/