$100 in 1923 is worth $1,514 in 2020,
because prices increased 1413.5% over that period, an average of
2.84% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$1,514
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1413.5%
Average inflation rate
2.84% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,514
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,414
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1923 → 2020
$1,514
$100 in 2020 → 1923
$6.61
What happened to prices between 1923 and 2020
Between 1923 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1413.5%, which works out to an average of
2.84% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2020: the 1923 dollar
lost 93.4% of its purchasing power over
these 97 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 2020 at the same ratio, 15.14: $1,000 becomes
$15,135, and $10,000 becomes $151,351.
Amount in 1923
Value in 2020
$1.00
$15.14
$5.00
$75.68
$10.00
$151
$20.00
$303
$50.00
$757
$100
$1,514
$500
$7,568
$1,000
$15,135
$5,000
$75,676
$10,000
$151,351
$100,000
$1,513,515
$1,000,000
$15,135,146
Inflation by spending category, 1923–2020
Between 1923 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1635.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 335.7%, against 1413.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.84%
$1,514
Food
2.99%
$1,735
Apparel
1.53%
$436
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 2020
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 1923–2020 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$1,007
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,275
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,514
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $260 by
1973, on its way to $1,514 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $1,514; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,514 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-2020/