$100 in 1913 is worth $135 in 1934,
because prices increased 35.4% over that period, an average of
1.45% a year.
$100 in 1913 has
the same buying power as
$135
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
35.4%
Average inflation rate
1.45% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$135
Price difference ($100 base)
$35.35
CPI in 1913
9.9
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1913
n/a
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1913 → 1934
$135
$100 in 1934 → 1913
$73.88
What happened to prices between 1913 and 1934
Between 1913 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 9.9 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 35.4%, which works out to an average of
1.45% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1913 bought what
$0.74 buys in 1934: the 1913 dollar
lost 26.1% of its purchasing power over
these 21 years.
1913 is where this site’s price history begins, because it’s where the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ own consumer price data begins. The CPI wasn’t published in real time back then;
the BLS built the earliest index retroactively from retail price records collected starting
in 1913, which makes every dollar figure on this site ultimately anchored to that year’s
prices. It was also the year the machinery of modern federal economic policy was built. The
16th Amendment, ratified in February, cleared the constitutional path for a federal income
tax, and the Revenue Act that followed in October imposed a top rate of just 7% on income
above $500,000, a narrow tax that would later be reshaped into the broad-based system that
funds the government today. In December, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating
the central bank that would eventually take on fighting inflation as one of its core jobs,
including the 19%-plus interest rates it deployed against the 1970s and early 1980s
price surge. Consumer life in 1913 was correspondingly simple by later
standards: a first-class stamp cost 2 cents, a price that held from 1885 all the way to
1917, and the Ford Motor Company introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park
plant that year, a manufacturing breakthrough that would spend the next decade driving down
the cost of a car faster than prices elsewhere were rising.
Every 1913 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 1.35: $1,000 becomes
$1,354, and $10,000 becomes $13,535.
Amount in 1913
Value in 1934
$1.00
$1.35
$5.00
$6.77
$10.00
$13.54
$20.00
$27.07
$50.00
$67.68
$100
$135
$500
$677
$1,000
$1,354
$5,000
$6,768
$10,000
$13,535
$100,000
$135,354
$1,000,000
$1,353,535
Inflation by spending category, 1913–1934
The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1913
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1913 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.45%
$135
Food
0.71%
$116
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1913: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), apparel (1914–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1913 to 1934
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 10.57% a year, and fell in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1913–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1913, at end
1913–1920
10.57%
102.0%
$202
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$169
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$135
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1913
$100 from 1913 had already become $173 by
1923, on its way to $135 in 1934; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 18.0% in 1918, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1934, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1913 had the buying
power of $135; the year's average CPI of 13.4 is the level
behind every 1934 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1913 to 1934: $100 is worth $135 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1913 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1913-to-1934/