Thursday, February 27, 2014

100 Years Of Inflation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has records going back to 1913. See CPI Detailed Report: Data for January 2014. It is a PDF file and you need to find Table 24.

It might be easier to see all the data at this site.

The base year is 1982-84. The Consumer Price Index was closest to 100 in 1983 when it was 99.6. In 1913 it was 9.9 and in 2013 it was 232.957. That means it took $232.957 to buy what cost $100 in 1983.

The compound annual inflation rate from 1913-2013 is about 3.21%. But some years were much higher and we had years that were negative. The CPI was 9.9 in 1913. So what cost $1.00 back then would cost over $23.00 now.

The compound annual inflation rate from 1983-2013 is about 2.873%.

Prices fell about 20% from 1929-1932 with a fall of  9.9% in 1932. The table below shows how much prices changed in each 10 year period.



Period
CPI Change
1913-1923
72.73%
1923-1933
-23.98%
1933-1943
33.08%
1943-1953
54.34%
1953-1963
14.61%
1963-1973
45.10%
1973-1983
124.32%
1983-1993
45.08%
1993-2003
27.34%
2003-2013
26.61%


The chart below shows the annual inflation rate for each year since 1914. There are two methods. One that only looks at the CPI in December of each year and finds the percentage change (blue line). The other method averages the CPI for all 12 months in each year and then finds the percentage change. Notice that they tend to be pretty close. But not always. See a post from 2010 called What Was The Rate Of Inflation Last Year? Was It Positive Or Negative?




2 comments:

Digmen1 said...

Great chart.
But how is the CPI measured.
What cost a dollar in 1913 now costs $23 ?

I'd guess most things cost a lot more than that. What were they measuring a beer, a packet of cigarettes, a car, a mobile phone, and pair of jeans ? a house?

Cyril Morong said...

Thanks for dropping by and commenting. See these two sites

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiovrvw.htm

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpi_methods.htm

They calculate the percentage change in a basket of goods a typical consumer buys from one year to the next. Yes, What cost a dollar in 1913 now costs $23 because 232/9.9 is about 23