$100 in 1926 is worth $83.05 in 1941,
because prices declined 16.9% over that period, an average of
1.23% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$83.05
in 1941
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-16.9%
Average inflation rate
-1.23% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$83.05
Price difference ($100 base)
-$16.95
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1941
14.7
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1941
5.00%
$100 in 1926 → 1941
$83.05
$100 in 1941 → 1926
$120
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1941
Between 1926 and 1941, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 14.7.
Cumulatively, prices declined 16.9%, which works out to an average of
-1.23% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.20 buys in 1941: the 1926 dollar
gained 20.4% in purchasing power over
these 15 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 1941 at the same ratio, 0.83: $1,000 becomes
$831, and $10,000 becomes $8,305.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1941
$1.00
$0.83
$5.00
$4.15
$10.00
$8.31
$20.00
$16.61
$50.00
$41.53
$100
$83.05
$500
$415
$1,000
$831
$5,000
$4,153
$10,000
$8,305
$100,000
$83,051
$1,000,000
$830,508
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1941
Every category fell between 1926 and 1941: food the most, down 22.9%, and apparel the least, down 12.0%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1941, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-1.23%
$83.05
Apparel
-0.85%
$88.03
Food
-1.72%
$77.06
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 1941
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.00% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1941 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1926, at end
1926–1930
-1.44%
-5.6%
$94.35
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$79.10
1940–1941
5.00%
5.0%
$83.05
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $73.45 by
1933, on its way to $83.05 in 1941; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 5.0% in 1941, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1941, prices rose 5.0% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $83.05; the year's average CPI of 14.7 is the level
behind every 1941 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.0% in 1941, up sharply from just 0.7% in
1940 and the fastest annual increase since 1920, as
rearmament and Lend-Lease production pushed demand well ahead of peacetime
supply even before the United States formally joined the war. Congress had
already tilted the country away from neutrality that March, passing the
Lend-Lease Act to arm Britain, and later the Soviet Union and other Allies,
without requiring immediate payment. That April, the government created the
Office of Price Administration to hold down the cost of civilian goods, the
start of a price-control system that would keep official inflation numbers
well below what wartime demand alone would have produced over the next four
years. Then, on December 7, Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor,
destroying much of the Pacific Fleet and killing more than 2,400 Americans.
Congress declared war on Japan the next day and on Germany and Italy three
days later, ending years of debate over whether the United States should
stay out of the conflict spreading across Europe and Asia. Consumer prices,
already up 48.5% from their 1913 level, would climb far
faster over the next two years as the economy converted fully to war
production. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1941: $100 is worth $83.05 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1941/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1941. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1941/