$100 in 1923 is worth $104 in 1926,
because prices increased 3.5% over that period, an average of
1.16% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$104
in 1926
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
3.5%
Average inflation rate
1.16% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$104
Price difference ($100 base)
$3.51
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1926
17.7
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
$100 in 1923 → 1926
$104
$100 in 1926 → 1923
$96.61
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1926
Between 1923 and 1926, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 17.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 3.5%, which works out to an average of
1.16% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$0.97 buys in 1926: the 1923 dollar
lost 3.4% of its purchasing power over
these 3 years.
Consumer prices rose 1.8% in 1923, the first increase since 1920 and a sign
the postwar deflation had run its course; the economy settled into the
steadier growth that defined much of the rest of the decade. The year’s
biggest shock was political rather than economic: Warren Harding died August
2 in San Francisco while returning from a trip to Alaska, and Vice President
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in the next day at his family’s farmhouse in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont, administered the oath of office by his own father,
a notary public, by lamplight. Coolidge would go on to preside over the low,
stable inflation of the “Roaring Twenties.” The contrast with Germany that
year was stark. The Weimar Republic’s currency collapse reached its peak in
November 1923, with prices doubling every few days and a loaf of bread
costing billions of marks; Germany introduced a new currency, the
Rentenmark, that month to halt the spiral. U.S. consumer prices, by
comparison, had moved in single digits or held flat every year since 1921, a
gap that shaped how American economists would later think about what made
the postwar inflation of Europe so different from the mild swings at home.
First-class postage stayed at 2 cents.
Every 1923 amount converts to 1926 at the same ratio, 1.04: $1,000 becomes
$1,035, and $10,000 becomes $10,351.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1926
$1.00
$1.04
$5.00
$5.18
$10.00
$10.35
$20.00
$20.70
$50.00
$51.75
$100
$104
$500
$518
$1,000
$1,035
$5,000
$5,175
$10,000
$10,351
$100,000
$103,509
$1,000,000
$1,035,088
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1926
Between 1923 and 1926, food rose the most, up 10.4%, while apparel fell 4.4%, against 3.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1926, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.16%
$104
Food
3.35%
$110
Apparel
-1.50%
$95.57
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1923: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $100 by
1924, on its way to $104 in 1926; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 2.3% in 1925, and the smallest rise was 0.0% in 1924.
In 1926, prices rose 1.1% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $104; the year's average CPI of 17.7 is the level
behind every 1926 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.1% in 1926, a third straight year of mild inflation
and part of the price stability that defined the middle of the decade.
Florida’s real estate boom, which had peaked the previous year on
speculative buying of undeveloped land, ended abruptly that September when
the Great Miami Hurricane made landfall near the city, killing hundreds and
wrecking the market for land whose value had rested on continued
speculation rather than anything underneath it. In Detroit, Henry Ford moved
his company to a five-day, 40-hour work week without cutting pay, a break
from the standard six-day schedule that other large employers would
gradually adopt over the following decades; Ford argued publicly that
workers with more leisure time would also become better customers for the
cars his factories built. Consumer prices remained low enough by historical
standards that a first-class stamp still cost just 2 cents, the same price
it had held since mid-1919.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1926: $100 is worth $104 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1926/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1926. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1926/