$100 in 1914 is worth $134 in 1934,
because prices increased 34.0% over that period, an average of
1.47% a year.
$100 in 1914 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
34.0%
Average inflation rate
1.47% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$34.00
CPI in 1914
10
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1914
1.01%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1914 → 1934
$134
$100 in 1934 → 1914
$74.63
What happened to prices between 1914 and 1934
Between 1914 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 10 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 34.0%, which works out to an average of
1.47% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1914 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1934: the 1914 dollar
lost 25.4% of its purchasing power over
these 20 years.
Consumer prices barely moved in 1914, rising just 1.0% for the year, even as
the country’s financial plumbing was rebuilt from the ground up. The Federal
Reserve Banks, created by the Federal Reserve Act signed the previous
December, opened their doors on November 16, giving the U.S. a central bank
for the first time since the 1830s. Weeks earlier, the outbreak of war in
Europe had spooked the New York Stock Exchange into closing for more than
four months, the longest shutdown in its history, as officials worried
European investors would dump American securities for gold. Domestically, the
bigger story was labor: Henry Ford’s decision to pay factory workers $5 a
day, announced in January, roughly doubled wages on his assembly lines and
pushed other manufacturers to raise pay just to keep workers from leaving. A
first-class stamp still cost 2 cents, a price that had held since 1885 and
would keep holding for three more years, even as the war reshaping Europe
began pulling the American economy toward the sustained wartime inflation of
1917.
Every 1914 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,340, and $10,000 becomes $13,400.
Amount in 1914
Value in 1934
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.70
$10.00
$13.40
$20.00
$26.80
$50.00
$67.00
$100
$134
$500
$670
$1,000
$1,340
$5,000
$6,700
$10,000
$13,400
$100,000
$134,000
$1,000,000
$1,340,000
Inflation by spending category, 1914–1934
Between 1914 and 1934, apparel rose the most, up 37.3%, while food rose the least, up 13.7%, against 34.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1914
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1914 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.47%
$134
Apparel
1.60%
$137
Food
0.65%
$114
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1914: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1914 to 1934
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 12.25% a year, and fell in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1914–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1914, at end
1914–1920
12.25%
100.0%
$200
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$167
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1914
$100 from 1914 had already become $171 by
1924, on its way to $134 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 1914 had the buying
power of $134; 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 1914 to 1934: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1914 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1914-to-1934/