$100 in 1923 is worth $845 in 1993,
because prices increased 745.0% over that period, an average of
3.10% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$845
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
745.0%
Average inflation rate
3.10% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$845
Price difference ($100 base)
$745
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1923 → 1993
$845
$100 in 1993 → 1923
$11.83
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1993
Between 1923 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 745.0%, which works out to an average of
3.10% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1993: the 1923 dollar
lost 88.2% of its purchasing power over
these 70 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 1993 at the same ratio, 8.45: $1,000 becomes
$8,450, and $10,000 becomes $84,503.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1993
$1.00
$8.45
$5.00
$42.25
$10.00
$84.50
$20.00
$169
$50.00
$423
$100
$845
$500
$4,225
$1,000
$8,450
$5,000
$42,251
$10,000
$84,503
$100,000
$845,029
$1,000,000
$8,450,292
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1993
Between 1923 and 1993, food rose the most, up 814.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 393.4%, against 745.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.10%
$845
Food
3.21%
$915
Apparel
2.31%
$493
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 1993
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 1923–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$764
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$845
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $169 by
1958, on its way to $845 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $845; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1993: $100 is worth $845 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1993/