$100 in 1923 is worth $725 in 1989,
because prices increased 625.1% over that period, an average of
3.05% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$725
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
625.1%
Average inflation rate
3.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$725
Price difference ($100 base)
$625
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1923 → 1989
$725
$100 in 1989 → 1923
$13.79
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1989
Between 1923 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 625.1%, which works out to an average of
3.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1989: the 1923 dollar
lost 86.2% of its purchasing power over
these 66 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 1989 at the same ratio, 7.25: $1,000 becomes
$7,251, and $10,000 becomes $72,515.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1989
$1.00
$7.25
$5.00
$36.26
$10.00
$72.51
$20.00
$145
$50.00
$363
$100
$725
$500
$3,626
$1,000
$7,251
$5,000
$36,257
$10,000
$72,515
$100,000
$725,146
$1,000,000
$7,251,462
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1989
Between 1923 and 1989, food rose the most, up 712.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 337.6%, against 625.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.05%
$725
Food
3.22%
$812
Apparel
2.26%
$438
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1989 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
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$482
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$725
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $169 by
1958, on its way to $725 in 1989; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $725; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1989: $100 is worth $725 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1989/