$100 in 1926 is worth $78.53 in 1936,
because prices declined 21.5% over that period, an average of
2.39% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$78.53
in 1936
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-21.5%
Average inflation rate
-2.39% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$78.53
Price difference ($100 base)
-$21.47
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1936
13.9
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1936
1.46%
$100 in 1926 → 1936
$78.53
$100 in 1936 → 1926
$127
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1936
Between 1926 and 1936, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 13.9.
Cumulatively, prices declined 21.5%, which works out to an average of
-2.39% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.27 buys in 1936: the 1926 dollar
gained 27.3% in purchasing power over
these 10 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 1936 at the same ratio, 0.79: $1,000 becomes
$785, and $10,000 becomes $7,853.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1936
$1.00
$0.79
$5.00
$3.93
$10.00
$7.85
$20.00
$15.71
$50.00
$39.27
$100
$78.53
$500
$393
$1,000
$785
$5,000
$3,927
$10,000
$7,853
$100,000
$78,531
$1,000,000
$785,311
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1936
Every category fell between 1926 and 1936: food the most, down 25.9%, and apparel the least, down 18.9%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1936, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-2.39%
$78.53
Apparel
-2.08%
$81.08
Food
-2.95%
$74.12
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 1936
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (3.0% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1936 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1936
-3.01%
-16.8%
$78.53
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $85.88 by
1931, on its way to $78.53 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 1926 had the buying
power of $78.53; 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 1926 to 1936: $100 is worth $78.53 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1936/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1936. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1936/