$100 in 1926 is worth $110 in 1946,
because prices increased 10.2% over that period, an average of
0.49% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$110
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
10.2%
Average inflation rate
0.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$110
Price difference ($100 base)
$10.17
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1926 → 1946
$110
$100 in 1946 → 1926
$90.77
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1946
Between 1926 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 10.2%, which works out to an average of
0.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.91 buys in 1946: the 1926 dollar
lost 9.2% of its purchasing power over
these 20 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.10: $1,000 becomes
$1,102, and $10,000 becomes $11,017.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.10
$5.00
$5.51
$10.00
$11.02
$20.00
$22.03
$50.00
$55.08
$100
$110
$500
$551
$1,000
$1,102
$5,000
$5,508
$10,000
$11,017
$100,000
$110,169
$1,000,000
$1,101,695
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1946
Between 1926 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 32.8%, while food rose the least, up 16.5%, against 10.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
0.49%
$110
Apparel
1.43%
$133
Food
0.77%
$116
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 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1946 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
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$110
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $78.53 by
1936, on its way to $110 in 1946; 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 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $110; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1946: $100 is worth $110 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1946/