$100 in 1917 is worth $105 in 1934,
because prices increased 4.7% over that period, an average of
0.27% a year.
$100 in 1917 has
the same buying power as
$105
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
4.7%
Average inflation rate
0.27% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$105
Price difference ($100 base)
$4.69
CPI in 1917
12.8
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1917
17.43%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1917 → 1934
$105
$100 in 1934 → 1917
$95.52
What happened to prices between 1917 and 1934
Between 1917 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 12.8 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 4.7%, which works out to an average of
0.27% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1917 bought what
$0.96 buys in 1934: the 1917 dollar
lost 4.5% of its purchasing power over
these 17 years.
1917 is when World War I inflation stopped being a background trend and
became the dominant fact of American economic life. Consumer prices rose
17.4% for the year, more than double the previous year’s already sharp
increase, as the country’s April 6 entry into the war layered federal war
spending on top of an economy already strained by military demand and
worker shortages. Congress paid for the war with the War Revenue Act that
October, which sharply raised income taxes, created a new tax on wartime
business profits, and, in a small but very visible change for ordinary
households, raised the cost of a first-class stamp from 2 cents to 3 cents
that November, the rate’s first move since 1885. Herbert Hoover took over
the new Food Administration in August and asked Americans to conserve food
voluntarily rather than face formal rationing, a campaign that became
famous enough that “Hooverize” entered the language as a verb for cutting
back. None of it slowed prices much: the 17.4% increase would be topped
again the very next year, in 1918.
Every 1917 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 1.05: $1,000 becomes
$1,047, and $10,000 becomes $10,469.
Amount in 1917
Value in 1934
$1.00
$1.05
$5.00
$5.23
$10.00
$10.47
$20.00
$20.94
$50.00
$52.34
$100
$105
$500
$523
$1,000
$1,047
$5,000
$5,234
$10,000
$10,469
$100,000
$104,688
$1,000,000
$1,046,875
Inflation by spending category, 1917–1934
Between 1917 and 1934, apparel rose the most, up 2.0%, while food fell 20.0%, against 4.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1917
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1917 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.27%
$105
Apparel
0.12%
$102
Food
-1.30%
$80.00
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1917: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1917 to 1934
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 16.04% a year, and fell in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1917–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1917, at end
1917–1920
16.04%
56.3%
$156
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$130
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$105
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1917
$100 from 1917 had already become $137 by
1925, on its way to $105 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 1917 had the buying
power of $105; 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 1917 to 1934: $100 is worth $105 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1917 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1917-to-1934/