$100 in 1922 is worth $231 in 1970,
because prices increased 131.0% over that period, an average of
1.76% a year.
$100 in 1922 has
the same buying power as
$231
in 1970
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
131.0%
Average inflation rate
1.76% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$231
Price difference ($100 base)
$131
CPI in 1922
16.8
CPI in 1970
38.8
Inflation in 1922
-6.15%
Inflation in 1970
5.72%
$100 in 1922 → 1970
$231
$100 in 1970 → 1922
$43.30
What happened to prices between 1922 and 1970
Between 1922 and 1970, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.8 to 38.8.
Cumulatively, prices increased 131.0%, which works out to an average of
1.76% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1922 bought what
$0.43 buys in 1970: the 1922 dollar
lost 56.7% of its purchasing power over
these 48 years.
Consumer prices fell another 6.1% in 1922, the second straight year of
decline, even as the broader economy climbed out of the Depression of
1920-21 and industrial production rebounded. The CPI had now given back
roughly a third of its wartime runup, though it stayed well above the
1913 baseline. Congress moved to shield that recovery from
foreign competition: the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, signed September 21,
raised duties on hundreds of imported goods to some of the highest levels in
U.S. history, a policy meant to protect farmers and manufacturers still
adjusting to postwar prices. Labor tension flared even as prices fell.
Roughly half a million bituminous coal miners struck that April over wage
cuts employers had imposed as prices dropped, and hundreds of thousands of
railroad shop workers walked out in July in a separate dispute over pay and
work rules, together the largest strike wave since 1919. Both disputes
dragged on for months and drew federal mediation before ending without full
concessions for the workers. First-class postage remained at 2 cents.
Every 1922 amount converts to 1970 at the same ratio, 2.31: $1,000 becomes
$2,310, and $10,000 becomes $23,095.
Amount in 1922
Value in 1970
$1.00
$2.31
$5.00
$11.55
$10.00
$23.10
$20.00
$46.19
$50.00
$115
$100
$231
$500
$1,155
$1,000
$2,310
$5,000
$11,548
$10,000
$23,095
$100,000
$230,952
$1,000,000
$2,309,524
Inflation by spending category, 1922–1970
Between 1922 and 1970, food rose the most, up 163.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 119.3%, against 131.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1922
spending costs in 1970, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1922 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.76%
$231
Food
2.04%
$263
Apparel
1.65%
$219
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1922: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1922 to 1970
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1922–1970 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1922, at end
1922–1930
-0.07%
-0.6%
$99.40
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.33
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$143
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$176
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$231
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1922
$100 from 1922 had already become $116 by
1946, on its way to $231 in 1970; 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 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1970
In 1970, prices rose 5.7% and $100 from 1922 had the buying
power of $231; the year's average CPI of 38.8 is the level
behind every 1970 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.7% in 1970, up from 1969’s 5.5%, extending a
run of faster price growth that stretched back to the mid-1960s, even as a
recession that began in December 1969 pushed unemployment toward 6%. Prices
and joblessness rising together confounded the era’s economic thinking, which
held that policymakers could trade a little more inflation for a little less
unemployment; 1970 was an early sign that trade-off was breaking down, a
pattern that would harden into stagflation later in the decade. Washington
restructured how it delivered mail that year: after postal workers staged the
first strike ever by federal employees that March, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act in August, replacing the cabinet-level Post Office
Department with the independent U.S. Postal Service. Environmental policy
also took shape in 1970. An estimated 20 million Americans marked the first
Earth Day on April 22, and the Environmental Protection Agency opened that
December to enforce the Clean Air Act and the pollution rules that followed.
The Vietnam War kept dividing the country: on May 4, National Guard troops
fired on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four
students and setting off strikes on hundreds of campuses. A median household
earned $8,734 that year, a gallon of gas averaged 36 cents, and a first-class
stamp cost 6 cents, the rate it had held since 1968. Prices stood 291.9%
above their 1913 level by the end of 1970, a milestone that
would look almost mild against the decade still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1922 to 1970: $100 is worth $231 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1970/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1922 to 1970. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1922-to-1970/