$100 in 1923 is worth $130 in 1947,
because prices increased 30.4% over that period, an average of
1.11% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$130
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
30.4%
Average inflation rate
1.11% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$130
Price difference ($100 base)
$30.41
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1923 → 1947
$130
$100 in 1947 → 1923
$76.68
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1947
Between 1923 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 30.4%, which works out to an average of
1.11% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.77 buys in 1947: the 1923 dollar
lost 23.3% of its purchasing power over
these 24 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 1947 at the same ratio, 1.30: $1,000 becomes
$1,304, and $10,000 becomes $13,041.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.30
$5.00
$6.52
$10.00
$13.04
$20.00
$26.08
$50.00
$65.20
$100
$130
$500
$652
$1,000
$1,304
$5,000
$6,520
$10,000
$13,041
$100,000
$130,409
$1,000,000
$1,304,094
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1947
Between 1923 and 1947, food rose the most, up 56.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 47.2%, against 30.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.11%
$130
Food
1.88%
$156
Apparel
1.62%
$147
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 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1947 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
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$130
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $80.12 by
1935, on its way to $130 in 1947; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $130; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1947: $100 is worth $130 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1947/