Buying power of $100 in 1821

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for $100 in 1821 (price index tracking began in 1635).

For example, if you started with $100, you would need to end with $2,169.20 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When $100 is equivalent to $2,169.20 over time, that means that the "real value" of a single U.S. dollar decreases over time. In other words, a dollar will pay for fewer items at the store.

This effect explains how inflation erodes the value of a dollar over time. By calculating the value in 1821 dollars, the chart below shows how $100 buys less over the past 196 years.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, each of these USD amounts below is equal in terms of what it could buy at the time:

Inflation by Country

Inflation can also vary widely by country. For comparison, in the UK £100.00 in 1821 would be equivalent to £10,435.92 in 2017, an absolute change of £10,335.92 and a cumulative change of 10,335.92%.

Compare these numbers to the US's overall absolute change of $2,069.20 and total percent change of 2,069.20%.

Inflation by Spending Category

CPI is the weighted combination of many categories of spending that are tracked by the government. This chart shows the average rate of inflation for select CPI categories between 1821 and 2017.

Compare these values to the overall average of 1.58% per year:

The graph below compares inflation in categories of goods over time. Click on a category such as "Food" to toggle it on or off:

For all these visualizations, it's important to note that not all categories may have been tracked since 1821. This table and charts use the earliest available data for each category.

How to Calculate Inflation Rate for $100, 1821 to 2017

This inflation calculator uses the following inflation rate formula:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The U.S. CPI was 11.3 in the year 1821 and 245.12 in 2017:

$100 in 1821 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as $2,169.20 in 2017.

To get the total inflation rate for the 196 years between 1821 and 2017, we use the following formula:

Plugging in the values to this equation, we get:

News headlines from 1821

Politics and news often influence economic performance. Here's what was happening at the time:

• The Mexican war of Independence ends after Mexican revolutionary forces occupy Mexico City and the Spanish withdraw.
• 30,000 Turks are massacred during the Greek war of Independence and Tripolitsa falls.
• Antarctica is circumnavigated for the first time in an expedition led by Russian polar explorers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellinghausen.

Data Source & Citation

Raw data for these calculations comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index (CPI), established in 1913. Inflation data from 1665 to 1912 is sourced from a historical study conducted by political science professor Robert Sahr at Oregon State University.

» Read more about inflation and investment.