Value of a Dollar in 1913
The Consumer Price Index starts in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, so this is as far back as official US prices go.
More optionsYear average → today (August 2026)
A month compares month to month, as BLS’s own calculator does.
Worth in
$1 in 1913 is worth
$33.84in August 2026
Prices rose 3283.6% in between, so $1 of 1913 goods costs $33.84 in August 2026.
The price of $1 of 1913 goods, year by year
- Total inflation
- +3283.6%
- Average a year
- 3.16%
- $1 of cash now buys
- $0.03 of 1913 goods
Official CPI-U data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, through August 2026. These are averages for urban consumers, not advice. Terms
How this works: Method, 7 sources, Checked against 1 worked example,
How this works
Method
A dollar from 1913 is worth what its goods cost now: the amount × the CPI now ÷ the CPI in 1913. For 1913 the calculator uses BLS’s annual average, the mean of the twelve monthly indexes; pick a month above for a month-to-month figure, which is how BLS’s own CPI Inflation Calculator works. Full method
Sources
- BLS, CPI-U all items (CUUR0000SA0)
- Federal Reserve History, Federal Reserve Act signed
- Federal Reserve History, The Fed’s formative years
- BLS, CPI-U all items, seasonally adjusted (CUSR0000SA0)
- BLS, Consumer Price Index data
- BLS, Relative importance of CPI components, December 2025
- BLS, Average hourly earnings, total private (CES0500000003)
How it’s tested
One worked example for this page is checked by automated tests before every release: given the inputs, the tool must show the expected answer.
Limits
Official CPI-U data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, through August 2026. These are averages for urban consumers, not advice.
Changes
- First version: what a dollar is worth from 1913 to August 2026, your own inflation rate, whether a raise beat inflation, the current rate, the rate by year and 12 year pages.
$1 from 1913, worked out
The CPI-U averaged 9.9 in 1913 and 334.980 in August 2026. Divide the two: 334.980 ÷ 9.9 = 33.836, so $1 of 1913 goods costs $33.84 now. The same factor scales any amount: $100 in 1913 is $3,384 today, a total rise of 3284% or 3.16% a year over 113 years.
Prices since 1913
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index begins in 1913, when the all-items index averaged 9.9 on today’s base, where the 1982–84 average is 100. President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act that December, so the official price record and the Fed start in the same year.
Prices barely moved at first: the index rose 1.0% in 1914 and 1.0% in 1915. Then World War I sent them up fast. Gold flowed into the country, the young Fed could not offset it, the money stock rose and inflation followed. By 1920 prices were 102% higher than in 1913, a doubling in seven years.
That early surge was mostly undone. Prices fell in the early 1920s and again in the Great Depression, so from 1913 to 1940 they rose only 41% in all. Nearly all of the rise since came after 1940. Over the whole span, today’s prices are 33.8 times the 1913 level: about 3.2% a year, compounded for more than a century.
- The CPI-U for all items averaged 9.9 in 1913 (1982–84 = 100), its first year. Source: BLS, CPI-U all items (CUUR0000SA0).
- President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913. Source: Federal Reserve History, Federal Reserve Act signed.
- During World War I, gold flowed into the United States, the money stock rose and inflation followed; the Fed lacked the means to offset it. Source: Federal Reserve History, The Fed’s formative years.
How the value of a dollar is worked out
A dollar from 1913 is worth what its goods cost now: the amount × the CPI now ÷ the CPI in 1913. For 1913 the calculator uses BLS’s annual average, the mean of the twelve monthly indexes; pick a month above for a month-to-month figure, which is how BLS’s own CPI Inflation Calculator works.
The index is the CPI-U, all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted: the series BLS publishes back to 1913. It measures the prices urban consumers pay, so it says what a dollar buys, not what an investment earned.
value now = amount × CPI(August 2026) ÷ CPI(1913)
$1 from 1913 in later years
What $1 of 1913 goods cost in each later year (annual averages), with that year’s inflation; the last row is the latest month.
| Year | CPI-U | $1 from 1913 | Inflation that year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1913 | 9.9 | $1 | — |
| 1923 | 17.1 | $1.73 | +1.8% |
| 1933 | 12.9 | $1.30 | −5.1% |
| 1943 | 17.3 | $1.75 | +6.1% |
| 1953 | 26.8 | $2.71 | +1.1% |
| 1963 | 30.6 | $3.09 | +1.3% |
| 1973 | 44.4 | $4.48 | +6.2% |
| 1983 | 99.6 | $10.06 | +3.2% |
| 1993 | 144.5 | $14.60 | +3.0% |
| 2003 | 184.0 | $18.59 | +2.3% |
Show all 14 rowsShow fewer
| 2013 | 232.957 | $23.53 | +1.5% |
| 2023 | 304.702 | $30.78 | +4.1% |
| 2025 | 321.943 | $32.52 | +2.6% |
| August 2026 | 334.980 | $33.84 | +3.4% (12 months) |
Data: BLS, CPI-U all items (CUUR0000SA0) · BLS, CPI-U all items, seasonally adjusted (CUSR0000SA0) · BLS, Consumer Price Index data · BLS, Relative importance of CPI components, December 2025 · BLS, Average hourly earnings, total private (CES0500000003). Inflation calculator
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the inflation calculator start in 1913?
Because the official Consumer Price Index starts there. BLS’s CPI-U series has a value for every month from January 1913. Estimates for earlier years exist, but they are historians’ reconstructions, not BLS figures, so this calculator doesn’t use them.
How much was $100 from 1913 worth in 1920?
About $202.02. Prices doubled in seven years, almost all of it during and just after World War I, when the 12-month rate peaked at 23.7% in June 1920.
Why did prices rise so fast after 1913?
World War I. Gold flowed into the United States and the money stock grew, and the Federal Reserve, focused on helping finance the war, did not raise interest rates to fight inflation until after it ended.