$100 in 1923 is worth $156 in 1953,
because prices increased 56.1% over that period, an average of
1.50% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$156
in 1953
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
56.1%
Average inflation rate
1.50% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$156
Price difference ($100 base)
$56.14
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1953
26.7
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1953
0.75%
$100 in 1923 → 1953
$156
$100 in 1953 → 1923
$64.04
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1953
Between 1923 and 1953, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 26.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 56.1%, which works out to an average of
1.50% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.64 buys in 1953: the 1923 dollar
lost 36.0% of its purchasing power over
these 30 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 1953 at the same ratio, 1.56: $1,000 becomes
$1,561, and $10,000 becomes $15,614.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1953
$1.00
$1.56
$5.00
$7.81
$10.00
$15.61
$20.00
$31.23
$50.00
$78.07
$100
$156
$500
$781
$1,000
$1,561
$5,000
$7,807
$10,000
$15,614
$100,000
$156,140
$1,000,000
$1,561,404
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1953
Between 1923 and 1953, food rose the most, up 83.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 59.0%, against 56.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1953, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.50%
$156
Food
2.05%
$184
Apparel
1.56%
$159
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 1953
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1953 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$141
1950–1953
3.47%
10.8%
$156
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $82.46 by
1938, on its way to $156 in 1953; 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 1953, prices rose 0.8% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $156; the year's average CPI of 26.7 is the level
behind every 1953 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 0.8% in 1953, down from 1952’s 1.9% as
fighting in Korea wound toward a truce and three years of wartime buying
pressure finally eased. The year’s biggest shock came from Moscow: Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin died March 5 after nearly three decades in power, the
first change of Soviet leadership since the 1920s, opening a period of
uncertainty over how his successors would deal with the West. Washington
used the calmer backdrop to unwind its own wartime machinery. Authority
for the price and wage controls imposed in 1951 lapsed that spring, as the
Eisenhower administration, which favored free markets over controls, wound
down the Office of Price Stabilization. The war itself ended, on paper,
that July: negotiators signed an armistice July 27 at Panmunjom, halting
the fighting roughly along the original border near the 38th parallel. No
formal peace treaty ever followed, and North and South Korea remain
technically at war. Consumer prices finished 1953 169.7% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at 75 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1953: $100 is worth $156 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1953/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1953. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1953/