$100 in 1923 is worth $381 in 1978,
because prices increased 281.3% over that period, an average of
2.46% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$381
in 1978
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
281.3%
Average inflation rate
2.46% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$381
Price difference ($100 base)
$281
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1978
65.2
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1978
7.59%
$100 in 1923 → 1978
$381
$100 in 1978 → 1923
$26.23
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1978
Between 1923 and 1978, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 65.2.
Cumulatively, prices increased 281.3%, which works out to an average of
2.46% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.26 buys in 1978: the 1923 dollar
lost 73.8% of its purchasing power over
these 55 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 1978 at the same ratio, 3.81: $1,000 becomes
$3,813, and $10,000 becomes $38,129.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1978
$1.00
$3.81
$5.00
$19.06
$10.00
$38.13
$20.00
$76.26
$50.00
$191
$100
$381
$500
$1,906
$1,000
$3,813
$5,000
$19,064
$10,000
$38,129
$100,000
$381,287
$1,000,000
$3,812,865
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1978
Between 1923 and 1978, food rose the most, up 367.5%, while apparel rose the least, up 200.4%, against 281.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1978, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.46%
$381
Food
2.84%
$468
Apparel
2.02%
$300
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 1978
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 6.70% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1978 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$227
1970–1978
6.70%
68.0%
$381
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $152 by
1951, on its way to $381 in 1978; 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: 1978
In 1978, prices rose 7.6% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $381; the year's average CPI of 65.2 is the level
behind every 1978 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 7.6% in 1978, accelerating for a second straight year as
rising wages, a weakening dollar, and climbing energy costs outpaced the
Federal Reserve’s response. Fed chairman G. William Miller, appointed by
Carter that March, kept interest rates too low to slow the trend, a policy
later cited as one reason inflation kept building toward the following year’s
crisis. California voters responded to their own version of the problem that
June, passing Proposition 13 by nearly two to one to cap property tax rates
after years of rising home values had pushed tax bills up alongside them.
Foreign policy delivered one of the decade’s genuine breakthroughs: President
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin together for thirteen days of negotiations at Camp David that
September, producing a framework for peace between the two countries that was
signed as a treaty the following March. First-class postage rose to 15 cents
that May 29, a rate that would hold longer than any other in the decade. The
year ended in tragedy: cult leader Jim Jones directed the mass murder-suicide
of more than 900 followers at a remote settlement in Guyana that November 18.
A median household earned $15,064 in 1978, a new home sold for a median
$55,700, and gas averaged 63 cents a gallon. Consumer prices stood 558.6%
above their 1913 level, with the decade’s worst inflation
still to come.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1978: $100 is worth $381 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1978/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1978. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1978/