US Inflation Rate by Year: 1913 to 2026

This page lists the US inflation rate by year for every year from 1913 through 2025, alongside the annual average Consumer Price Index behind each figure. All of it comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the 1982-84 = 100 base. Click any year in the table to open that year’s month by month breakdown. Over the full 113 year record, inflation has averaged 3.26% a year.

US inflation rate by year, 1913 to 2025

Annual averages, not December to December. The 2026 annual figures will be added once the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the full year average in early 2027.

← Slide left and right to view more. →

Inflation by decade

The year by year view is precise but hard to hold in your head. Grouped by decade, the shape of the century becomes obvious: two inflationary shocks around the World Wars, a deflationary Depression, the long 1970s climb, then forty years of gradual calm broken in 2021.

The extremes, and the thirteen years prices fell

The five worst years in the record are 1918 at 18.0%, 1917 at 17.4%, 1920 at 15.6%, 1919 at 14.6% and 1947 at 14.4%. Four of those five sit either side of the First World War. Nothing in the postwar era comes close, and that is worth remembering whenever 2022 gets described as unprecedented. It was the worst year since 1981, which is a long way from the worst year on record.

At the other end, prices have actually fallen in 13 of the 112 years with a recorded rate: 1921, 1922, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1938, 1939, 1949, 1955 and 2009. Eleven of those are clustered in the two decades between the wars. What strikes me, after years of fielding reader questions about whether deflation would be a relief, is that the deflationary years in this table are almost all catastrophic ones. Falling prices and a healthy economy have rarely gone together. The relationship between the two is laid out in our piece on how inflation, recession and depression connect.

What a dollar from each era is worth now

The annual rates compound, which is why a century of fairly ordinary looking numbers produces a thirty two fold change. Measured against the 2025 annual average:

Cumulatively, prices rose 3,151.9% between 1913 and 2025. If you want the figure for a specific pair of years and a specific amount, the inflation adjusted return calculator handles that, and there is a wider discussion of how currency circulation feeds into all of this in our explainer on the velocity of money.

Where 2026 fits

This table stops at 2025 on purpose. An annual figure is the average of twelve monthly readings, so 2026 cannot be finalised until BLS publishes the full year average in early 2027. In the meantime, the running monthly picture for 2026 and every year back to 2000 is on our current US inflation rate page, which is updated with each monthly release.

For readers tracking this because of what it does to savings and portfolios rather than out of curiosity, the practical side is covered in our notes on investing through inflation and deflation.

Frequently asked questions

Data source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index, annual averages for All Urban Consumers on the 1982-84 = 100 base. Decade averages and purchasing power figures on this page are calculated from the annual series in the table above.

Do NOT miss any inflation update.

Sign up to receive CPI Inflation Calculator's monthly alerts, and you'll be the first to know when inflation changes. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Your information will never be shared or sold to a 3rd party.