$100 in 1919 is worth $77.46 in 1934,
because prices declined 22.5% over that period, an average of
1.69% a year.
$100 in 1919 has
the same buying power as
$77.46
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-22.5%
Average inflation rate
-1.69% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$77.46
Price difference ($100 base)
-$22.54
CPI in 1919
17.3
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1919
14.57%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1919 → 1934
$77.46
$100 in 1934 → 1919
$129
What happened to prices between 1919 and 1934
Between 1919 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.3 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices declined 22.5%, which works out to an average of
-1.69% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1919 bought what
$1.29 buys in 1934: the 1919 dollar
gained 29.1% in purchasing power over
these 15 years.
The fighting in Europe ended in November 1918, but American prices kept
climbing through 1919 almost as fast as they had during the war itself,
rising 14.6% for the year. Wartime price and production controls were being
dismantled, millions of soldiers were returning to the civilian labor
market, and demand that had been held back for years ran into supply that
had not caught up, a combination that kept the cost of living rising even
with the guns silent. Workers, whose pay had fallen behind three straight
years of double-digit inflation, pushed back: a general strike shut down
Seattle in February, Boston’s police force walked out in September, and a
nationwide steel strike that same month drew in roughly 350,000 workers and
ran into the following January. One price did fall that year: first-class
postage reverted to 2 cents on July 1, ending the wartime 3-cent rate that
had funded part of the war effort since late 1917. By year’s end, prices had
risen close to 75% since the CPI’s 1913 starting point,
compressing more than a decade of typical peacetime inflation into six years
of war and its aftermath.
Every 1919 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 0.77: $1,000 becomes
$775, and $10,000 becomes $7,746.
Amount in 1919
Value in 1934
$1.00
$0.77
$5.00
$3.87
$10.00
$7.75
$20.00
$15.49
$50.00
$38.73
$100
$77.46
$500
$387
$1,000
$775
$5,000
$3,873
$10,000
$7,746
$100,000
$77,457
$1,000,000
$774,566
Inflation by spending category, 1919–1934
Every category fell between 1919 and 1934: apparel the most, down 43.1%, and food the least, down 37.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1919
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1919 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.69%
$77.46
Food
-3.10%
$62.37
Apparel
-3.69%
$56.91
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1919: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1919 to 1934
Prices climbed fastest in the 1910s, averaging 15.61% a year, and fell in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1919–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1919, at end
1919–1920
15.61%
15.6%
$116
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$96.53
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$77.46
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1919
$100 from 1919 had already become $102 by
1926, on its way to $77.46 in 1934; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 15.6% in 1920, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1934, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1919 had the buying
power of $77.46; 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 1919 to 1934: $100 is worth $77.46 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1919 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1919-to-1934/