$100 in 1926 is worth $85.88 in 1931,
because prices declined 14.1% over that period, an average of
3.00% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$85.88
in 1931
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-14.1%
Average inflation rate
-3.00% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$85.88
Price difference ($100 base)
-$14.12
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1931
15.2
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
$100 in 1926 → 1931
$85.88
$100 in 1931 → 1926
$116
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1931
Between 1926 and 1931, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 15.2.
Cumulatively, prices declined 14.1%, which works out to an average of
-3.00% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.16 buys in 1931: the 1926 dollar
gained 16.4% in purchasing power over
these 5 years.
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.
Every 1926 amount converts to 1931 at the same ratio, 0.86: $1,000 becomes
$859, and $10,000 becomes $8,588.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1931
$1.00
$0.86
$5.00
$4.29
$10.00
$8.59
$20.00
$17.18
$50.00
$42.94
$100
$85.88
$500
$429
$1,000
$859
$5,000
$4,294
$10,000
$8,588
$100,000
$85,876
$1,000,000
$858,757
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1931
Every category fell between 1926 and 1931: food the most, down 24.1%, and apparel the least, down 15.1%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1931, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-3.00%
$85.88
Apparel
-3.21%
$84.94
Food
-5.37%
$75.88
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1926: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1926 to 1931
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (9.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1931 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1931
-8.98%
-9.0%
$85.88
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $96.61 by
1928, on its way to $85.88 in 1931; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 0.0% in 1929, and prices fell 9.0% in 1931, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1931, prices fell 9.0% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $85.88; the year's average CPI of 15.2 is the level
behind every 1931 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1931: $100 is worth $85.88 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1931/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1931. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1931/