$100 in 1923 is worth $81.29 in 1939,
because prices declined 18.7% over that period, an average of
1.29% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$81.29
in 1939
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-18.7%
Average inflation rate
-1.29% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$81.29
Price difference ($100 base)
-$18.71
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1939
13.9
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1939
-1.42%
$100 in 1923 → 1939
$81.29
$100 in 1939 → 1923
$123
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1939
Between 1923 and 1939, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 18.7%, which works out to an average of
-1.29% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.23 buys in 1939: the 1923 dollar
gained 23.0% in purchasing power over
these 16 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 1939 at the same ratio, 0.81: $1,000 becomes
$813, and $10,000 becomes $8,129.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1939
$1.00
$0.81
$5.00
$4.06
$10.00
$8.13
$20.00
$16.26
$50.00
$40.64
$100
$81.29
$500
$406
$1,000
$813
$5,000
$4,064
$10,000
$8,129
$100,000
$81,287
$1,000,000
$812,865
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1939
Every category fell between 1923 and 1939: food the most, down 23.4%, and apparel the least, down 20.3%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1939, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.29%
$81.29
Apparel
-1.41%
$79.70
Food
-1.65%
$76.62
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 1939
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (2.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1939 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1939
-2.02%
-16.8%
$81.29
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $88.89 by
1931, on its way to $81.29 in 1939; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.6% in 1937, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1939, prices fell 1.4% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $81.29; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1939 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 1.4% in 1939, closing out a decade in which the CPI
fell in six years and rose in four, leaving prices 18.7% below their
1929 level even after the mid-decade recovery. Measured
against the start of the CPI’s modern record, prices still stood 40.4%
above their 1913 level, a reminder that even a decade defined
by deflation left the cost of living well above where it had been a
generation earlier. The decade’s final months reset the economic picture
entirely. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Britain and France
declared war two days later; the United States stayed formally neutral
under the Neutrality Acts, but Allied orders for war materiel began flowing
to American factories almost immediately, a demand shock that would do more
to end the Depression over the next few years than any peacetime relief
program had managed. Domestic policy kept building on the New Deal’s
framework, too: the federal minimum wage rose to 30 cents an hour that
October, the second step in the schedule set by the 1938 Fair Labor
Standards Act. Amid it all, the New York World’s Fair opened April 30 in
Queens, themed “The World of Tomorrow” and drawing tens of millions of
visitors with exhibits on television and other technologies promising a
more prosperous decade than the one just ending. First-class postage held
at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1939: $100 is worth $81.29 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1939/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1939. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1939/