$100 in 1920 is worth $67.00 in 1934,
because prices declined 33.0% over that period, an average of
2.82% a year.
$100 in 1920 has
the same buying power as
$67.00
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-33.0%
Average inflation rate
-2.82% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$67.00
Price difference ($100 base)
-$33.00
CPI in 1920
20
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1920
15.61%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1920 → 1934
$67.00
$100 in 1934 → 1920
$149
What happened to prices between 1920 and 1934
Between 1920 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 20 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices declined 33.0%, which works out to an average of
-2.82% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1920 bought what
$1.49 buys in 1934: the 1920 dollar
gained 49.3% in purchasing power over
these 14 years.
1920 was the last year of the inflation that had built since the war began:
consumer prices rose 15.6% for the year, leaving the CPI more than double its
1913 starting level after seven straight years of increases.
The boom behind those increases turned to bust before the year was over. The
Federal Reserve, worried about speculation, pushed its discount rate to a
record 7% that spring, and wholesale prices, which had led the wartime
runup, began collapsing within months. The National Bureau of Economic
Research dates the resulting downturn from January 1920 to July 1921, one of
the shortest but steepest contractions in U.S. history, and consumer prices
followed into outright decline, falling 10.5% in 1921. Two constitutional
changes reshaped the country that year, too. The 18th Amendment’s ban on
alcohol took legal effect January 17, enforced under the Volstead Act
Congress had passed the previous October. Then, on August 18, Tennessee’s
ratification of the 19th Amendment secured women’s right to vote nationwide,
and women cast ballots in a presidential election for the first time that
November, when Warren Harding won on a promise to return the country to
“normalcy” after a decade of war, pandemic, and rising prices. First-class
postage held at 2 cents, unchanged since mid-1919.
Every 1920 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 0.67: $1,000 becomes
$670, and $10,000 becomes $6,700.
Amount in 1920
Value in 1934
$1.00
$0.67
$5.00
$3.35
$10.00
$6.70
$20.00
$13.40
$50.00
$33.50
$100
$67.00
$500
$335
$1,000
$670
$5,000
$3,350
$10,000
$6,700
$100,000
$67,000
$1,000,000
$670,000
Inflation by spending category, 1920–1934
Every category fell between 1920 and 1934: apparel the most, down 52.2%, and food the least, down 44.8%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1920
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1920 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.82%
$67.00
Food
-4.15%
$55.24
Apparel
-5.14%
$47.80
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1920: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1920 to 1934
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.8% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1920–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1920, at end
1920–1930
-1.79%
-16.5%
$83.50
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$67.00
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1920
$100 from 1920 had already become $87.00 by
1927, on its way to $67.00 in 1934; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.1% in 1934, and prices fell 10.5% in 1921, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1934, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1920 had the buying
power of $67.00; 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 1920 to 1934: $100 is worth $67.00 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1920 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1920-to-1934/