$100 in 1923 is worth $81.29 in 1936,
because prices declined 18.7% over that period, an average of
1.58% a year.
$100 in 1923 has
the same buying power as
$81.29
in 1936
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-18.7%
Average inflation rate
-1.58% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$81.29
Price difference ($100 base)
-$18.71
CPI in 1923
17.1
CPI in 1936
13.9
Inflation in 1923
1.79%
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
$100 in 1923 → 1936
$81.29
$100 in 1936 → 1923
$123
What happened to prices between 1923 and 1936
Between 1923 and 1936, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.1 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 18.7%, which works out to an average of
-1.58% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1923 bought what
$1.23 buys in 1936: the 1923 dollar
gained 23.0% in purchasing power over
these 13 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 1936 at the same ratio, 0.81: $1,000 becomes
$813, and $10,000 becomes $8,129.
Amount in 1923
Value in 1936
$1.00
$0.81
$5.00
$4.06
$10.00
$8.13
$20.00
$16.26
$50.00
$40.64
$100
$81.29
$500
$406
$1,000
$813
$5,000
$4,064
$10,000
$8,129
$100,000
$81,287
$1,000,000
$812,865
Inflation by spending category, 1923–1936
Every category fell between 1923 and 1936: apparel the most, down 22.5%, and food the least, down 18.2%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1923
spending costs in 1936, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1923 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.58%
$81.29
Food
-1.53%
$81.82
Apparel
-1.94%
$77.49
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 1936
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.3% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (3.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1923–1936 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1923, at end
1923–1930
-0.34%
-2.3%
$97.66
1930–1936
-3.01%
-16.8%
$81.29
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1923
$100 from 1923 had already become $100 by
1929, on its way to $81.29 in 1936; 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 1936, prices rose 1.5% and $100 from 1923 had the buying
power of $81.29; the year's average CPI of 13.9 is the level
behind every 1936 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.5% in 1936, a third straight annual increase and part
of a slow, steady climb back from the 1933 trough, though
prices and the broader economy still had not fully recovered to their
pre-Depression levels. Voters delivered their verdict on that recovery in
November, reelecting Franklin D. Roosevelt over Republican Alf Landon in one
of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history: Roosevelt carried 46 of 48
states and won the Electoral College 523 to 8, a broad public endorsement of
the New Deal. Public works kept advancing that year, too. Hoover Dam, one of
the era’s signature projects, had been dedicated in September 1935, but its
first generators did not begin sending electricity over transmission lines
to Los Angeles until October 1936, a milestone that showed how long even a
celebrated project took to reach full operation. Consumer prices ended the
year 40.4% above their 1913 level, still 18.7% below the
1929 peak, a gap that would keep narrowing until a sharp new recession
interrupted the recovery the following year. First-class postage held at 3
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1923 to 1936: $100 is worth $81.29 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1936/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1923 to 1936. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1923-to-1936/