U.S. Inflation History: The Purchasing Power Time Machine

Josh · Last updated:

Last verified: July 12, 2026 against BLS CPI-U (CUUR0000SA0) annual averages via the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 1913-2026

Reviewed by Josh for financial modeling and data. See more by Josh.

Every year of U.S. inflation since the CPI began, what any dollar amount from any year is worth today, and the number almost nobody publishes: how fast each era actually destroyed the value of cash.

Source: BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI-U, series CUUR0000SA0), annual averages, as tabulated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. 2026 is the Minneapolis Fed estimate.

Pick a year. Bring money forward.

19132025
$

Buys the same as this in 2026

$0

And the reverse

If you had held it as cash (purchasing power, in starting-year goods)

The decay curve is what holding cash costs. The same dollars invested are a different story - see the S&P 500 time machine for the comparison.

33x
Price level since 1913
What cost $1 in 1913 costs about $33 today. Long-run inflation compounds at 3.2% per year.
+17.4%
Worst year: 1917
World War I finance, not the 1970s, holds the record. 1980's famous peak was 13.5%.
-10.5%
Deepest deflation: 1932
13 of 113 years since 1914 saw falling prices. Only one (2009) came after 1955.

The half-life of the dollar

Inflation calculators tell you what money was worth. This table answers the sharper question: starting from any decade, how many years did cash take to lose half its purchasing power? The answer has ranged from 7 years to "has not happened yet."

Cash held from Years to lose half its value Halved by
1913 7 years 1920
1920 51 years 1971
1930 37 years 1967
1940 17 years 1957
1950 24 years 1974
1960 17 years 1977
1970 10 years 1980
1980 19 years 1999
1990 31 years 2021
2000 Not yet (52% remains) -
2010 Not yet (66% remains) -

Three eras stand out. Money held from 1913 or 1970 halved in about a decade - wartime finance and the oil shocks were that corrosive. Money held from 1990 took three decades to halve, the payoff of the Volcker disinflation. And 2010 cash still has about two thirds of its purchasing power sixteen years later, even after absorbing the 2021-22 spike.

The practical read: the danger of cash is not any single year of inflation, it is which regime you are living in. At the Fed's 2% target, the half-life of a dollar is about 35 years. At the 1970s pace it was under 10.

Every inflation year since 1914, in one strip

Red above the line, blue below. The pre-1950 era swings wildly in both directions; the post-Volcker era is a flat ribbon - which is exactly why 2022 felt like a regime break to anyone under 60.

-10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 1914: +1.0% 1915: +1.0% 1916: +7.9% 1917: +17.4% 1918: +17.2% 1919: +15.3% 1920: +15.6% 1921: -10.5% 1922: -6.1% 1923: +1.8% 1924: 0.0% 1925: +2.3% 1926: +1.1% 1927: -1.7% 1928: -1.1% 1929: 0.0% 1930: -2.9% 1931: -9.0% 1932: -10.5% 1933: -5.1% 1934: +3.9% 1935: +2.2% 1936: +1.5% 1937: +3.6% 1938: -2.1% 1939: -1.4% 1940: +0.7% 1941: +5.0% 1942: +10.9% 1943: +6.1% 1944: +1.7% 1945: +2.3% 1946: +8.3% 1947: +14.4% 1948: +7.6% 1949: -0.8% 1950: +1.3% 1951: +7.9% 1952: +2.3% 1953: +0.8% 1954: +0.4% 1955: -0.4% 1956: +1.5% 1957: +3.3% 1958: +2.8% 1959: +1.0% 1960: +1.4% 1961: +1.0% 1962: +1.3% 1963: +1.0% 1964: +1.3% 1965: +1.6% 1966: +3.2% 1967: +2.8% 1968: +4.2% 1969: +5.5% 1970: +5.7% 1971: +4.4% 1972: +3.2% 1973: +6.2% 1974: +11.0% 1975: +9.1% 1976: +5.8% 1977: +6.5% 1978: +7.6% 1979: +11.3% 1980: +13.5% 1981: +10.3% 1982: +6.2% 1983: +3.2% 1984: +4.3% 1985: +3.6% 1986: +1.9% 1987: +3.6% 1988: +4.1% 1989: +4.8% 1990: +5.4% 1991: +4.2% 1992: +3.0% 1993: +3.0% 1994: +2.6% 1995: +2.8% 1996: +3.0% 1997: +2.3% 1998: +1.6% 1999: +2.2% 2000: +3.4% 2001: +2.8% 2002: +1.6% 2003: +2.3% 2004: +2.7% 2005: +3.4% 2006: +3.2% 2007: +2.8% 2008: +3.9% 2009: -0.4% 2010: +1.7% 2011: +3.1% 2012: +2.1% 2013: +1.5% 2014: +1.6% 2015: +0.1% 2016: +1.3% 2017: +2.1% 2018: +2.4% 2019: +1.8% 2020: +1.2% 2021: +4.7% 2022: +8.0% 2023: +4.1% 2024: +3.0% 2025: +2.6% 2026: +2.8% (estimated) 19201930194019501960197019801990200020102020
Hover any bar for the exact figure. The 2026 bar is the Minneapolis Fed estimate and drawn lighter. Download this chart (light · dark) - PennyCalc chart artwork is reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution; source-data terms still apply. Licensing details.

The eight moments that moved the dollar

1917

World War I finance produces back-to-back years near +18%, still the fastest annual price increases on record.

1921

The postwar bust delivers -10.9%, the deepest one-year deflation ever measured by the CPI.

1933

The Great Depression bottoms out. Prices fell roughly 27% from 1929 to 1933; cash was the era's best-performing asset.

1947

WWII price controls come off and suppressed inflation arrives at once: +14.4% in a single year.

1974

The first oil shock pushes inflation to +11.1%. The dollar of 1970 has already lost a quarter of its purchasing power.

1980

The second oil shock peaks at +13.5%. Volcker's Fed answers with 20% policy rates, buying the next four decades of stability.

2009

The financial crisis produces -0.4%, the only deflationary year since 1955.

2022

Post-pandemic stimulus and supply shocks deliver +8.0%, the fastest year since 1981, and reintroduce a generation to inflation.

Things you might not know

  • The worst inflation was not the 1970s. 1917 (+17.4%) and 1918 (+17.2%) both beat 1980's 13.5%. Wartime finance without a modern central bank was worse than oil shocks with one.
  • Cash was the best asset of the early 1930s. Prices fell about 27% from 1929 to 1933, so uninvested dollars gained a third in purchasing power while stocks lost 80% and banks failed. Deflation is why Depression-era savers hoarded currency.
  • Prices were flat for a century before the CPI. The price level in 1913 was roughly where it had been in 1813; sustained peacetime inflation is a post-gold-standard phenomenon. Every generation before 1940 expected prices to fall back after wars, and they did.
  • A 1913 dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power - and yet every diversified generation since got wealthier, because wages and asset returns compounded faster. Inflation is a tax on idle cash specifically, not on invested wealth.
  • The 2021-22 spike cost savers a decade of normal erosion in two years. The price level rose 13% from 2020 to 2022 - the same loss of purchasing power that the 2010s delivered in roughly eight years.
Year-by-year table: CPI and inflation, 1913-2026
Year Avg CPI Inflation $100 then = today
1913 9.9 - $3,342
1914 10.0 +1.0% $3,309
1915 10.1 +1.0% $3,276
1916 10.9 +7.9% $3,036
1917 12.8 +17.4% $2,585
1918 15.0 +17.2% $2,206
1919 17.3 +15.3% $1,913
1920 20.0 +15.6% $1,654
1921 17.9 -10.5% $1,849
1922 16.8 -6.1% $1,970
1923 17.1 +1.8% $1,935
1924 17.1 0.0% $1,935
1925 17.5 +2.3% $1,891
1926 17.7 +1.1% $1,869
1927 17.4 -1.7% $1,902
1928 17.2 -1.1% $1,924
1929 17.2 0.0% $1,924
1930 16.7 -2.9% $1,981
1931 15.2 -9.0% $2,177
1932 13.6 -10.5% $2,433
1933 12.9 -5.1% $2,565
1934 13.4 +3.9% $2,469
1935 13.7 +2.2% $2,415
1936 13.9 +1.5% $2,381
1937 14.4 +3.6% $2,298
1938 14.1 -2.1% $2,347
1939 13.9 -1.4% $2,381
1940 14.0 +0.7% $2,364
1941 14.7 +5.0% $2,251
1942 16.3 +10.9% $2,030
1943 17.3 +6.1% $1,913
1944 17.6 +1.7% $1,880
1945 18.0 +2.3% $1,838
1946 19.5 +8.3% $1,697
1947 22.3 +14.4% $1,484
1948 24.0 +7.6% $1,379
1949 23.8 -0.8% $1,390
1950 24.1 +1.3% $1,373
1951 26.0 +7.9% $1,273
1952 26.6 +2.3% $1,244
1953 26.8 +0.8% $1,235
1954 26.9 +0.4% $1,230
1955 26.8 -0.4% $1,235
1956 27.2 +1.5% $1,217
1957 28.1 +3.3% $1,178
1958 28.9 +2.8% $1,145
1959 29.2 +1.0% $1,133
1960 29.6 +1.4% $1,118
1961 29.9 +1.0% $1,107
1962 30.3 +1.3% $1,092
1963 30.6 +1.0% $1,081
1964 31.0 +1.3% $1,067
1965 31.5 +1.6% $1,050
1966 32.5 +3.2% $1,018
1967 33.4 +2.8% $991
1968 34.8 +4.2% $951
1969 36.7 +5.5% $902
1970 38.8 +5.7% $853
1971 40.5 +4.4% $817
1972 41.8 +3.2% $792
1973 44.4 +6.2% $745
1974 49.3 +11.0% $671
1975 53.8 +9.1% $615
1976 56.9 +5.8% $582
1977 60.6 +6.5% $546
1978 65.2 +7.6% $508
1979 72.6 +11.3% $456
1980 82.4 +13.5% $402
1981 90.9 +10.3% $364
1982 96.5 +6.2% $343
1983 99.6 +3.2% $332
1984 103.9 +4.3% $318
1985 107.6 +3.6% $308
1986 109.6 +1.9% $302
1987 113.6 +3.6% $291
1988 118.3 +4.1% $280
1989 124.0 +4.8% $267
1990 130.7 +5.4% $253
1991 136.2 +4.2% $243
1992 140.3 +3.0% $236
1993 144.5 +3.0% $229
1994 148.2 +2.6% $223
1995 152.4 +2.8% $217
1996 156.9 +3.0% $211
1997 160.5 +2.3% $206
1998 163.0 +1.6% $203
1999 166.6 +2.2% $199
2000 172.2 +3.4% $192
2001 177.1 +2.8% $187
2002 179.9 +1.6% $184
2003 184.0 +2.3% $180
2004 188.9 +2.7% $175
2005 195.3 +3.4% $169
2006 201.6 +3.2% $164
2007 207.3 +2.8% $160
2008 215.3 +3.9% $154
2009 214.5 -0.4% $154
2010 218.1 +1.7% $152
2011 224.9 +3.1% $147
2012 229.6 +2.1% $144
2013 233.0 +1.5% $142
2014 236.7 +1.6% $140
2015 237.0 +0.1% $140
2016 240.0 +1.3% $138
2017 245.1 +2.1% $135
2018 251.1 +2.4% $132
2019 255.7 +1.8% $129
2020 258.8 +1.2% $128
2021 271.0 +4.7% $122
2022 292.7 +8.0% $113
2023 304.7 +4.1% $109
2024 313.7 +3.0% $105
2025 321.9 +2.6% $103
2026 (est.) 330.9 +2.8% $100

Source: BLS CPI-U annual averages via the Minneapolis Fed. 2026 is the Minneapolis Fed estimate.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the inflation conversion calculated?
The conversion multiplies your amount by the ratio of the two years' average Consumer Price Index values (BLS series CUUR0000SA0). $100 in 1970 becomes $100 x (330.9 / 38.8), roughly $853 in 2026 dollars. Annual averages smooth month-to-month noise; the BLS monthly series would give slightly different figures for specific dates.
What is the long-run average U.S. inflation rate?
From 1913 through 2025, the price level compounded at 3.2% per year. The average hides enormous variance: the 1970s averaged over 7%, while 2010-2020 averaged under 2%. The Federal Reserve has targeted 2% since 2012.
Has the U.S. ever had deflation?
Yes - 13 calendar years since 1913 saw the price level fall. Most cluster in 1921-1933; the deepest was 1921 at -10.5%. The only deflationary year in the modern era was 2009 (-0.4%). Sustained deflation vanished after the gold-standard era because the Fed treats falling prices as a policy failure.
Why does the calculator use CPI instead of another measure?
CPI-U is the longest continuous U.S. price series and the one used for Social Security COLAs, tax bracket indexing (via chained CPI since 2018), and TIPS. Alternatives exist: PCE (the Fed's preferred gauge) runs about 0.3 points cooler, and chained CPI about 0.25 points cooler. Over a century those gaps compound, so treat any single-series conversion as an estimate with a range around it.
What does inflation mean for long-term investing?
At the long-run 3.2% pace, prices double roughly every 22 years - cash loses half its purchasing power sitting still. That is the case for owning assets: the S&P 500's 10% long-run nominal return is roughly 6.7% real, and the difference between projecting in nominal versus real terms decides whether a retirement plan actually works. Our compound interest calculator takes either; use a real rate if you think in today's dollars.
This page is for educational purposes. CPI is one measure of inflation among several; individual cost-of-living changes vary. Consult a financial professional for advice specific to your situation.

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