$100 in 1926 is worth $99.44 in 1944,
because prices declined 0.6% over that period, an average of
0.03% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$99.44
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-0.6%
Average inflation rate
-0.03% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$99.44
Price difference ($100 base)
-$0.56
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1926 → 1944
$99.44
$100 in 1944 → 1926
$101
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1944
Between 1926 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices declined 0.6%, which works out to an average of
-0.03% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$1.01 buys in 1944: the 1926 dollar
gained 0.6% in purchasing power over
these 18 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 1944 at the same ratio, 0.99: $1,000 becomes
$994, and $10,000 becomes $9,944.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1944
$1.00
$0.99
$5.00
$4.97
$10.00
$9.94
$20.00
$19.89
$50.00
$49.72
$100
$99.44
$500
$497
$1,000
$994
$5,000
$4,972
$10,000
$9,944
$100,000
$99,435
$1,000,000
$994,350
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1944
Between 1926 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 15.1%, while food fell 0.6%, against 0.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
-0.03%
$99.44
Apparel
0.78%
$115
Food
-0.03%
$99.41
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 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.89% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1944 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
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$99.44
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $77.40 by
1935, on its way to $99.44 in 1944; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $99.44; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1944: $100 is worth $99.44 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1944/