$100 in 1926 is worth $102 in 1945,
because prices increased 1.7% over that period, an average of
0.09% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$102
in 1945
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1.7%
Average inflation rate
0.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$102
Price difference ($100 base)
$1.69
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1945
18
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1945
2.27%
$100 in 1926 → 1945
$102
$100 in 1945 → 1926
$98.33
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1945
Between 1926 and 1945, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 18.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1.7%, which works out to an average of
0.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.98 buys in 1945: the 1926 dollar
lost 1.7% of its purchasing power over
these 19 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 1945 at the same ratio, 1.02: $1,000 becomes
$1,017, and $10,000 becomes $10,169.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1945
$1.00
$1.02
$5.00
$5.08
$10.00
$10.17
$20.00
$20.34
$50.00
$50.85
$100
$102
$500
$508
$1,000
$1,017
$5,000
$5,085
$10,000
$10,169
$100,000
$101,695
$1,000,000
$1,016,949
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1945
Between 1926 and 1945, apparel rose the most, up 21.2%, while food rose the least, up 1.8%, against 1.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1945, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.09%
$102
Apparel
1.02%
$121
Food
0.09%
$102
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 1945
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.15% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1945 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
1940–1945
5.15%
28.6%
$102
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 $102 in 1945; 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 1945, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $102; the year's average CPI of 18 is the level
behind every 1945 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.3% in 1945, up from 1944’s 1.7% but
still modest, a rate that understated how much pressure had built up behind
wartime price and wage controls, which stayed largely in place even as the
conflict that justified them came to a close. The year opened with a shock
at home: Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, less
than three months into an unprecedented fourth term, and Vice President
Harry Truman was sworn in that same afternoon. The war Roosevelt had led for
nearly four years ended without him. Germany surrendered on May 8, and
Japan surrendered on August 15, after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that month, with the formal signing aboard the USS Missouri on
September 2. Domestic policy kept moving even as the guns fell silent: the
federal minimum wage rose to 40 cents an hour that October 24, the final
step of the schedule Congress had built into the 1938 Fair Labor Standards
Act, up from 30 cents in 1939 and 25 cents at the law’s start. Consumer
prices stood 81.8% above their 1913 level, a gain that would
look modest next to what followed once wartime controls actually came off.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1945: $100 is worth $102 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1945/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1945. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1945/