Between 1924 and 2022, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 292.655.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1611.4%, which works out to an average of
2.94% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1924 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2022.
Consumer prices held flat in 1924, the CPI’s annual average unchanged from
1923 after swinging from a sharp postwar drop to a modest rise the year
before. That stability, extending the calm that had settled in after the
deflation of 1921 and 1922, became a defining feature of the rest of the
decade. Congress tightened immigration policy further with the Immigration
Act of 1924, signed May 26, which cut the national-origins quota from 3% of
each nationality’s 1910 census population to 2% of its 1890 population,
shifting admissions further toward northern and western Europe and
effectively excluding most immigration from Asia. Abroad, the U.S.-backed
Dawes Plan, adopted that August, reorganized Germany’s war reparations
payments and opened the way for American loans into the German economy,
helping stabilize European currencies after the hyperinflation that had
peaked in 1923. At home, Calvin Coolidge, who had served out
the remainder of Warren Harding’s term after his death the previous year,
won a full term of his own that November, campaigning on continued
prosperity and limited government. First-class postage remained at 2 cents,
a price unchanged since mid-1919.
The headline number is an average. Individual categories moved very differently over this
period. Here is what $100 of 1924 spending costs in 2022, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1924 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.94%
$1,711
Food
3.11%
$2,009
Apparel
1.60%
$474
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1924: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Long periods are sampled every 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 2022
2022 was the year inflation returned. Consumer prices rose 8.0% on average,
the worst since 1981, driven by pandemic-era supply chains, stimulus-fueled
demand, and an energy shock from the war in Ukraine. Gas briefly topped $5 a
gallon nationally for the first time ever, and “inflation” became the
top-ranked economic concern in nearly every poll of American households.
MLA: “Inflation from 1924 to 2022: $100 is worth $1,711 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-2022/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1924 to 2022. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1924-to-2022/