$100 in 1923 is worth $80.12 in 1935,
because prices declined 19.9% over that period, an average of
1.83% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$80.12
in 1935
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-19.9%
Average inflation rate
-1.83% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$80.12
Price difference ($100 base)
-$19.88
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1935
13.7
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
$100 in 1923 → 1935
$80.12
$100 in 1935 → 1923
$125
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1935
Between 1923 and 1935, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 19.9%, which works out to an average of
-1.83% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.25 buys in 1935: the 1923 dollar
gained 24.8% in purchasing power over
these 12 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 1935 at the same ratio, 0.80: $1,000 becomes
$801, and $10,000 becomes $8,012.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1935
$1.00
$0.80
$5.00
$4.01
$10.00
$8.01
$20.00
$16.02
$50.00
$40.06
$100
$80.12
$500
$401
$1,000
$801
$5,000
$4,006
$10,000
$8,012
$100,000
$80,117
$1,000,000
$801,170
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1935
Every category fell between 1923 and 1935: apparel the most, down 23.2%, and food the least, down 19.5%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1935, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.83%
$80.12
Food
-1.79%
$80.52
Apparel
-2.18%
$76.75
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 1935
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (3.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1935 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1935
-3.88%
-18.0%
$80.12
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $100 by
1929, on its way to $80.12 in 1935; 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 1935, prices rose 2.2% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $80.12; the year's average CPI of 13.7 is the level
behind every 1935 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.2% in 1935, a second straight annual increase after
1934’s turnaround, though the CPI still sat well below its
1929 peak and the recovery remained uneven and incomplete.
The year’s biggest legislative achievements aimed at making that unevenness
less punishing. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14,
creating federal old-age pensions and unemployment insurance funded by a new
payroll tax, the first federal safety net of its kind in U.S. history. That
spring, the Works Progress Administration had already begun putting millions
of unemployed Americans to work on public construction, arts, and
infrastructure projects, becoming the largest jobs program of the New Deal.
Congress added labor protections to the mix that July with the National
Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing most private-sector workers the right to
organize and bargain collectively. The human cost of the Dust Bowl was still
mounting on the Plains: the storm known as Black Sunday hit on April 14,
one of the worst of the decade, and continued drought kept driving farm
families off land that could no longer support them. Consumer prices ended
the year 38.4% above their 1913 level. First-class postage
held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1935: $100 is worth $80.12 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1935/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1935. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1935/