$100 in 1923 is worth $215 in 1969,
because prices increased 114.6% over that period, an average of
1.67% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$215
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
114.6%
Average inflation rate
1.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$215
Price difference ($100 base)
$115
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1923 → 1969
$215
$100 in 1969 → 1923
$46.59
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1969
Between 1923 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 114.6%, which works out to an average of
1.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.47 buys in 1969: the 1923 dollar
lost 53.4% of its purchasing power over
these 46 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.15: $1,000 becomes
$2,146, and $10,000 becomes $21,462.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.15
$5.00
$10.73
$10.00
$21.46
$20.00
$42.92
$50.00
$107
$100
$215
$500
$1,073
$1,000
$2,146
$5,000
$10,731
$10,000
$21,462
$100,000
$214,620
$1,000,000
$2,146,199
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1969
Between 1923 and 1969, food rose the most, up 140.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 109.6%, against 114.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.67%
$215
Food
1.93%
$241
Apparel
1.62%
$210
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 1969
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 1923–1969 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
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$173
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$215
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $105 by
1945, on its way to $215 in 1969; 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.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1969
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $215; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1969: $100 is worth $215 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1969/