$100 in 1923 is worth $102 in 1925,
because prices increased 2.3% over that period, an average of
1.16% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1925
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2.3%
Average inflation rate
1.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$2.34
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1925
17.5
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
$100 in 1923 → 1925
$102
$100 in 1925 → 1923
$97.71
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1925
Between 1923 and 1925, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 17.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2.3%, which works out to an average of
1.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1925: the 1923 dollar
lost 2.3% of its purchasing power over
these 2 years.
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.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1925 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,023, and $10,000 becomes $10,234.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1925
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.12
$10.00
$10.23
$20.00
$20.47
$50.00
$51.17
$100
$102
$500
$512
$1,000
$1,023
$5,000
$5,117
$10,000
$10,234
$100,000
$102,339
$1,000,000
$1,023,392
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1925
Between 1923 and 1925, food rose the most, up 7.1%, while apparel fell 3.0%, against 2.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1925, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.16%
$102
Food
3.51%
$107
Apparel
-1.49%
$97.05
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: 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 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $100 by
1924, on its way to $102 in 1925; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.3% in 1925, and the smallest rise was 0.0% in 1924.
In 1925, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $102; the year's average CPI of 17.5 is the level
behind every 1925 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1925: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1925/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1925. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1925/