$100 in 1923 is worth $1,585 in 2021,
because prices increased 1484.6% over that period, an average of
2.86% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$1,585
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1484.6%
Average inflation rate
2.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,585
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,485
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1923 → 2021
$1,585
$100 in 2021 → 1923
$6.31
What happened to prices between 1923 and 2021
Between 1923 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1484.6%, which works out to an average of
2.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2021: the 1923 dollar
lost 93.7% of its purchasing power over
these 98 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 2021 at the same ratio, 15.85: $1,000 becomes
$15,846, and $10,000 becomes $158,462.
Amount in 1923
Value in 2021
$1.00
$15.85
$5.00
$79.23
$10.00
$158
$20.00
$317
$50.00
$792
$100
$1,585
$500
$7,923
$1,000
$15,846
$5,000
$79,231
$10,000
$158,462
$100,000
$1,584,620
$1,000,000
$15,846,199
Inflation by spending category, 1923–2021
Between 1923 and 2021, food rose the most, up 1703.6%, while apparel rose the least, up 346.5%, against 1484.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.86%
$1,585
Food
3.00%
$1,804
Apparel
1.54%
$446
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 2021
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 1923–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,585
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $260 by
1973, on its way to $1,585 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $1,585; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,585 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-2021/