$100 in 1923 is worth $103 in 1944,
because prices increased 2.9% over that period, an average of
0.14% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$103
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
2.9%
Average inflation rate
0.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$103
Price difference ($100 base)
$2.92
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1923 → 1944
$103
$100 in 1944 → 1923
$97.16
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1944
Between 1923 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 2.9%, which works out to an average of
0.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1944: the 1923 dollar
lost 2.8% of its purchasing power over
these 21 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 1944 at the same ratio, 1.03: $1,000 becomes
$1,029, and $10,000 becomes $10,292.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.03
$5.00
$5.15
$10.00
$10.29
$20.00
$20.58
$50.00
$51.46
$100
$103
$500
$515
$1,000
$1,029
$5,000
$5,146
$10,000
$10,292
$100,000
$102,924
$1,000,000
$1,029,240
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1944
Between 1923 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 10.0%, while food rose the least, up 9.7%, against 2.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.14%
$103
Apparel
0.45%
$110
Food
0.44%
$110
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 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.89% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$103
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $76.02 by
1933, on its way to $103 in 1944; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $103; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1944: $100 is worth $103 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1944/