$100 in 1923 is worth $78.36 in 1934,
because prices declined 21.6% over that period, an average of
2.19% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$78.36
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-21.6%
Average inflation rate
-2.19% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$78.36
Price difference ($100 base)
-$21.64
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1923 → 1934
$78.36
$100 in 1934 → 1923
$128
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1934
Between 1923 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices declined 21.6%, which works out to an average of
-2.19% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.28 buys in 1934: the 1923 dollar
gained 27.6% in purchasing power over
these 11 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 1934 at the same ratio, 0.78: $1,000 becomes
$784, and $10,000 becomes $7,836.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1934
$1.00
$0.78
$5.00
$3.92
$10.00
$7.84
$20.00
$15.67
$50.00
$39.18
$100
$78.36
$500
$392
$1,000
$784
$5,000
$3,918
$10,000
$7,836
$100,000
$78,363
$1,000,000
$783,626
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1934
Every category fell between 1923 and 1934: food the most, down 24.7%, and apparel the least, down 24.0%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.19%
$78.36
Apparel
-2.46%
$76.01
Food
-2.54%
$75.32
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–).
Decade by decade: 1923 to 1934
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$78.36
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $100 by
1928, on its way to $78.36 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 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1934, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $78.36; 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 1923 to 1934: $100 is worth $78.36 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1934/