$100 in 1926 is worth $77.40 in 1935,
because prices declined 22.6% over that period, an average of
2.81% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$77.40
in 1935
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-22.6%
Average inflation rate
-2.81% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$77.40
Price difference ($100 base)
-$22.60
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1935
13.7
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1935
2.24%
$100 in 1926 → 1935
$77.40
$100 in 1935 → 1926
$129
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1935
Between 1926 and 1935, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 13.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 22.6%, which works out to an average of
-2.81% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.29 buys in 1935: the 1926 dollar
gained 29.2% in purchasing power over
these 9 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 1935 at the same ratio, 0.77: $1,000 becomes
$774, and $10,000 becomes $7,740.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1935
$1.00
$0.77
$5.00
$3.87
$10.00
$7.74
$20.00
$15.48
$50.00
$38.70
$100
$77.40
$500
$387
$1,000
$774
$5,000
$3,870
$10,000
$7,740
$100,000
$77,401
$1,000,000
$774,011
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1935
Every category fell between 1926 and 1935: food the most, down 27.1%, and apparel the least, down 19.7%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1935, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.81%
$77.40
Apparel
-2.41%
$80.31
Food
-3.45%
$72.94
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 1935
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (3.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1935 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1935
-3.88%
-18.0%
$77.40
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $94.35 by
1930, on its way to $77.40 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 1926 had the buying
power of $77.40; 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 1926 to 1935: $100 is worth $77.40 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1935/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1935. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1935/