$100 in 1926 is worth $73.45 in 1933,
because prices declined 26.6% over that period, an average of
4.31% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$73.45
in 1933
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-26.6%
Average inflation rate
-4.31% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$73.45
Price difference ($100 base)
-$26.55
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1933
13
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1933
-5.11%
$100 in 1926 → 1933
$73.45
$100 in 1933 → 1926
$136
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1933
Between 1926 and 1933, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 13.
Cumulatively, prices declined 26.6%, which works out to an average of
-4.31% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.36 buys in 1933: the 1926 dollar
gained 36.2% in purchasing power over
these 7 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 1933 at the same ratio, 0.73: $1,000 becomes
$734, and $10,000 becomes $7,345.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1933
$1.00
$0.73
$5.00
$3.67
$10.00
$7.34
$20.00
$14.69
$50.00
$36.72
$100
$73.45
$500
$367
$1,000
$734
$5,000
$3,672
$10,000
$7,345
$100,000
$73,446
$1,000,000
$734,463
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1933
Every category fell between 1926 and 1933: food the most, down 38.8%, and apparel the least, down 27.4%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1933, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-4.31%
$73.45
Apparel
-4.47%
$72.59
Food
-6.78%
$61.18
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 1933
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (8.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1933 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1933
-8.01%
-22.2%
$73.45
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $96.61 by
1929, on its way to $73.45 in 1933; 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 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1933, prices fell 5.1% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $73.45; the year's average CPI of 13 is the level
behind every 1933 figure on this page.
Consumer prices fell 5.1% in 1933, a smaller decline than 1932’s
but enough to complete a four-year slide of 24.0% from the 1929
peak. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the trough of that
contraction to March 1933, closing out the longest downturn in its
chronology, one that had run 43 months since August 1929. The bottom
arrived alongside a change in government: Franklin D. Roosevelt was
inaugurated March 4 and, within 48 hours, ordered every bank in the country
closed to halt a fresh round of runs. Congress passed the Emergency Banking
Act on March 9, letting solvent banks reopen under federal supervision, and
the panic that had been building for months broke almost immediately. The
administration moved on the currency next: Executive Order 6102, issued
April 5, required Americans to turn in most gold coin, bullion, and
certificates to the Federal Reserve, taking the country off the domestic
gold standard (formal devaluation of the dollar followed the next January).
Congress capped the year’s banking overhaul in June with the Banking Act of
1933, commonly called Glass-Steagall, which created the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation and separated commercial banking from investment
banking. Even after four straight years of falling prices, the CPI still
stood 31.3% above its 1913 level. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1933: $100 is worth $73.45 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1933/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1933. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1933/