$100 in 1923 is worth $85.96 in 1941,
because prices declined 14.0% over that period, an average of
0.84% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$85.96
in 1941
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-14.0%
Average inflation rate
-0.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$85.96
Price difference ($100 base)
-$14.04
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1941
14.7
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
$100 in 1923 → 1941
$85.96
$100 in 1941 → 1923
$116
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1941
Between 1923 and 1941, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 14.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 14.0%, which works out to an average of
-0.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.16 buys in 1941: the 1923 dollar
gained 16.3% in purchasing power over
these 18 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 1941 at the same ratio, 0.86: $1,000 becomes
$860, and $10,000 becomes $8,596.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1941
$1.00
$0.86
$5.00
$4.30
$10.00
$8.60
$20.00
$17.19
$50.00
$42.98
$100
$85.96
$500
$430
$1,000
$860
$5,000
$4,298
$10,000
$8,596
$100,000
$85,965
$1,000,000
$859,649
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1941
Every category fell between 1923 and 1941: apparel the most, down 15.9%, and food the least, down 14.9%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1941, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.84%
$85.96
Food
-0.89%
$85.06
Apparel
-0.96%
$84.13
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 1941
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.00% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1941 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$81.87
1940–1941
5.00%
5.0%
$85.96
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $80.12 by
1932, on its way to $85.96 in 1941; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.0% in 1941, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1941, prices rose 5.0% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $85.96; the year's average CPI of 14.7 is the level
behind every 1941 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1941: $100 is worth $85.96 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1941/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1941. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1941/