$100 in 1923 is worth $88.89 in 1931,
because prices declined 11.1% over that period, an average of
1.46% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$88.89
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-11.1%
Average inflation rate
-1.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$88.89
Price difference ($100 base)
-$11.11
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1923 → 1931
$88.89
$100 in 1931 → 1923
$113
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1931
Between 1923 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices declined 11.1%, which works out to an average of
-1.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.13 buys in 1931: the 1923 dollar
gained 12.5% in purchasing power over
these 8 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 1931 at the same ratio, 0.89: $1,000 becomes
$889, and $10,000 becomes $8,889.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1931
$1.00
$0.89
$5.00
$4.44
$10.00
$8.89
$20.00
$17.78
$50.00
$44.44
$100
$88.89
$500
$444
$1,000
$889
$5,000
$4,444
$10,000
$8,889
$100,000
$88,889
$1,000,000
$888,889
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1931
Every category fell between 1923 and 1931: apparel the most, down 18.8%, and food the least, down 16.2%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.46%
$88.89
Food
-2.19%
$83.77
Apparel
-2.57%
$81.18
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–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1931
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1931 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$88.89
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $102 by
1927, on its way to $88.89 in 1931; 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 prices fell 9.0% in 1931, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $88.89; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1931: $100 is worth $88.89 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1931/