Saturday, December 28, 2019

US Inflation Since 1913


How Much Inflation have we had since 1913? By Tim McMahon 6/18/15, inflationdata.com.

US Cumulative inflation increased by 92.86% from 1913 to 1919 and increased by 103.45 from 1970 to 1979.

Just like compound interest compound inflation grows faster and faster.  The average annual inflation since 1913 is "only" 3.24%.  See Average Annual Inflation Rates by Decade
But as you can see from the chart below compounding something for almost 100 years at 3.24% will result in over 2000% inflation. The Consumer Price index (CPI-U) for January 1913 was 9.8.  The CPI-U for September 2013 was 234.149.  This means that something that cost $9.80 in January of 1913 would cost $234.15 today!

If that isn't bad enough, actually the situation is even worse than that. If you look at the chart carefully you will see that inflation was fairly steep during the "teens" from 1913 - 1920 actually almost 100% (See: Total Inflation by Decade). Then during the 1920's and 1930's inflation actually declined.  The CPI-U index stood at 13.9 in January of 1940.
So actually most of the 2000% inflation occurred since 1940.  The average annual inflation rate in the 1940's was 4.86% in the 1970's it was 7.25% and the 1980's was 5.82%. Each of those decades were especially hard economically for people trying to make ends meet while prices increased and wages didn't keep up.



US Inflation History - Average inflation rate by year from 1914 to 2018

In 1913, the US Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act. It imposed a “managed economy’ and gave the Federal Reserve Bank the authority to set the discount interest rate used to lend money to banks and print money, causing inflation. Congress also passed the Income Tax Act and Inheritance Tax Act in 1913. The first years were mild with a 1% income tax and 1% inflation in 1914 and 1915.

Inflation moved to 7.9% in 1916, 17.4% in 1917, 18% in 1918, 14.6% in 1919 and 15.6% in 1920.


1914 1.0
1915 1.0
1916 7.9
1917 17.4
1918 18.0
1919 14.6
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 -1.7
1929 0.0
1930 -2.3
1931 -9.0
1932 -9.9
1933 -5.1
1934 3.1
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 8.1
1949 -1.2
1950 7.9
1951 1.9
1952 1.9
1953 0.8
1954 0.7
1955 -0.4
1956 1.5
1957 3.3
1958 2.8
1959 0.7
1960 1.7
1961 1.0
1962 1.0
1963 1.3
1964 1.3
1965 1.6
1966 2.9
1967 3.1
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 13.6
1981 10.3
1983 6.2
1984 3.2
1985 4.3
1986 3.6
1987 1.9
1988 3.6
1989 4.1
1990 4.8
1991 5.4
1992 4.2
1993 3.0
1994 2.6
1995 2.8
1996 3.0
1997 3.2
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 3.8
2009 -0.4
2010 1.6
2011 3.2
2012 2.1
2013 1.5
2014 1.6
2015 0.1
2016 1.3
2017 2.1
2018 2.4
2019 1.9

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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