$100 in 1923 is worth $425 in 1979,
because prices increased 324.6% over that period, an average of
2.62% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$425
in 1979
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
324.6%
Average inflation rate
2.62% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$425
Price difference ($100 base)
$325
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1979
72.6
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1979
11.35%
$100 in 1923 → 1979
$425
$100 in 1979 → 1923
$23.55
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1979
Between 1923 and 1979, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 72.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 324.6%, which works out to an average of
2.62% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.24 buys in 1979: the 1923 dollar
lost 76.4% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1979 at the same ratio, 4.25: $1,000 becomes
$4,246, and $10,000 becomes $42,456.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1979
$1.00
$4.25
$5.00
$21.23
$10.00
$42.46
$20.00
$84.91
$50.00
$212
$100
$425
$500
$2,123
$1,000
$4,246
$5,000
$21,228
$10,000
$42,456
$100,000
$424,561
$1,000,000
$4,245,614
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1979
Between 1923 and 1979, food rose the most, up 418.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 213.3%, against 324.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1979, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.62%
$425
Food
2.98%
$519
Apparel
2.06%
$313
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 1979
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.21% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1979 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
1970–1979
7.21%
87.1%
$425
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $152 by
1951, on its way to $425 in 1979; 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: 1979
In 1979, prices rose 11.3% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $425; the year's average CPI of 72.6 is the level
behind every 1979 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 11.3% in 1979, the fastest pace since 1947 and the
decade’s second bout of double-digit inflation after 1974’s
11.0%. The trigger was familiar: the Iranian Revolution that January halted
Iran’s oil exports, and panic buying amplified the shortage, sending crude
prices sharply higher over the year and motorists back into gas lines, with
some states reviving the odd-even rationing last seen in 1974. Paul Volcker,
appointed Federal Reserve chairman that August, responded with a strategy
shift announced that October: the Fed would target the money supply directly
and let interest rates rise as high as necessary to break inflation, whatever
the short-term cost. That cost would arrive as a deep recession in 1981-82,
but by year’s end 1979 had already delivered enough turmoil on its own. A
reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
suffered a partial core meltdown that March 28, the worst commercial nuclear
accident in U.S. history, and on November 4, militants in Tehran stormed the
U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis that
consumed the rest of Carter’s presidency. A median household earned $16,461
in 1979, a new home sold for a median $62,900, and gas jumped to 86 cents a
gallon. Consumer prices finished the decade 97.8% above where they stood in
1969, very nearly doubling in ten years, and stood 633.3%
above their 1913 level. The 1970s had opened with inflation
cooling from the 1969 spike and closed with prices rising faster than at any
point since 1947, setting up the Great
Inflation’s final act in 1980.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1979: $100 is worth $425 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1979/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1979. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1979/