$100 in 1925 is worth $111 in 1946,
because prices increased 11.4% over that period, an average of
0.52% a year.
$100 in 1925 has
the same buying power as
$111
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
11.4%
Average inflation rate
0.52% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$111
Price difference ($100 base)
$11.43
CPI in 1925
17.5
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1925 → 1946
$111
$100 in 1946 → 1925
$89.74
What happened to prices between 1925 and 1946
Between 1925 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.5 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 11.4%, which works out to an average of
0.52% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1925 bought what
$0.90 buys in 1946: the 1925 dollar
lost 10.3% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
Every 1925 amount converts to 1946 at the same ratio, 1.11: $1,000 becomes
$1,114, and $10,000 becomes $11,143.
Amount in 1925
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.11
$5.00
$5.57
$10.00
$11.14
$20.00
$22.29
$50.00
$55.71
$100
$111
$500
$557
$1,000
$1,114
$5,000
$5,571
$10,000
$11,143
$100,000
$111,429
$1,000,000
$1,114,286
Inflation by spending category, 1925–1946
Between 1925 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 30.8%, while food rose the least, up 20.0%, against 11.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1925
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1925 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.52%
$111
Apparel
1.29%
$131
Food
0.87%
$120
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1925: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1925 to 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1925–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1925, at end
1925–1930
-0.93%
-4.6%
$95.43
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$80.00
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$111
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1925
$100 from 1925 had already become $78.29 by
1935, on its way to $111 in 1946; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1925 had the buying
power of $111; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1925 to 1946: $100 is worth $111 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1925 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1946/