$1 in 1913 is worth $34.08 today (CPI)
$34.08
Updated June 1, 2026 · BLS / FRED (CPIAUCSL)
$1 in 1913 is worth $34.08 in today's dollars, adjusted by the official U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), which rose 3,308% since then. BLS/FRED data through June 1, 2026.
A single 1913 dollar was real money, not a token — in the year the Federal Reserve opened and the price record began. At that scale the adjustment isn't an abstraction: it tells you how many of today's dollars it takes to buy what one coin once did. The smaller the starting sum, the more cleanly it isolates the slow erosion of a single dollar's purchasing power across more than a century.
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Year by year
| Year | Equivalent value |
|---|---|
| 1920 | $2 |
| 1930 | $2 |
| 1940 | $1 |
| 1950 | $3 |
| 1960 | $3 |
| 1970 | $4 |
| 1980 | $9 |
| 1990 | $14 |
| 2000 | $18 |
| 2010 | $22 |
| 2020 | $27 |
| 2026 | $34 |
Selected milestones; the math uses every month of the official series.
Put differently: what cost $1 in 1913 costs $34.08 today. A dollar from 1913 buys only 3% of what it bought then — prices multiplied 34.1× over the period.
1913 is where the official record begins: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking consumer prices the same year the Federal Reserve was created.
Frequently asked questions
How is the value of $1 from 1913 calculated?
We divide today's CPI-U index level by the 1913 level, as published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cumulative change is 3,308% — a factor of 34.08.
Which inflation measure is used?
CPI-U, the broadest official U.S. consumer price index (all urban consumers), the same series used by the BLS inflation calculator.
Does this include investment returns?
No. This is pure purchasing-power adjustment. Money invested in stocks or bonds over the same period would have grown far more than inflation.
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Descriptive, educational content computed from official public data. Not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results.