$100 in 1925 is worth $76.57 in 1934,
because prices declined 23.4% over that period, an average of
2.92% a year.
$100 in 1925 has
the same buying power as
$76.57
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-23.4%
Average inflation rate
-2.92% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$76.57
Price difference ($100 base)
-$23.43
CPI in 1925
17.5
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1925
2.34%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1925 → 1934
$76.57
$100 in 1934 → 1925
$131
What happened to prices between 1925 and 1934
Between 1925 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.5 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices declined 23.4%, which works out to an average of
-2.92% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1925 bought what
$1.31 buys in 1934: the 1925 dollar
gained 30.6% in purchasing power over
these 9 years.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1925, the CPI’s largest single-year increase
since the deflationary swings of the early 1920s, though still mild next to
the double-digit inflation of the World War I years. The country’s cultural
fault lines were on full display that summer in Dayton, Tennessee, where
high school teacher John Scopes was tried July 10-21 for violating a state
law against teaching evolution, a case that drew national press coverage and
pitted prosecutor William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence
Darrow. Real estate speculation, meanwhile, peaked in Florida, where buyers
flipped undeveloped land in the Miami area on thin down payments, driving
prices far above what the land itself could support; the bubble would
collapse the following year. Detroit reshuffled that June too: Walter
Chrysler reorganized the struggling Maxwell Motor Company into Chrysler
Corporation, the start of what would become one of the American auto
industry’s “Big Three.” First-class postage held at 2 cents for the sixth
straight year.
Every 1925 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 0.77: $1,000 becomes
$766, and $10,000 becomes $7,657.
Amount in 1925
Value in 1934
$1.00
$0.77
$5.00
$3.83
$10.00
$7.66
$20.00
$15.31
$50.00
$38.29
$100
$76.57
$500
$383
$1,000
$766
$5,000
$3,829
$10,000
$7,657
$100,000
$76,571
$1,000,000
$765,714
Inflation by spending category, 1925–1934
Every category fell between 1925 and 1934: food the most, down 29.7%, and apparel the least, down 21.7%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1925
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1925 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.92%
$76.57
Apparel
-2.68%
$78.33
Food
-3.84%
$70.30
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1925: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1925 to 1934
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (0.9% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1925–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1925, at end
1925–1930
-0.93%
-4.6%
$95.43
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$76.57
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1925
$100 from 1925 had already become $97.71 by
1929, on its way to $76.57 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 1925 had the buying
power of $76.57; 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 1925 to 1934: $100 is worth $76.57 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1925 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1925-to-1934/