$100 in 1926 is worth $169 in 1961,
because prices increased 68.9% over that period, an average of
1.51% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$169
in 1961
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
68.9%
Average inflation rate
1.51% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$169
Price difference ($100 base)
$68.93
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1961
29.9
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1961
1.01%
$100 in 1926 → 1961
$169
$100 in 1961 → 1926
$59.20
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1961
Between 1926 and 1961, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 29.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 68.9%, which works out to an average of
1.51% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.59 buys in 1961: the 1926 dollar
lost 40.8% of its purchasing power over
these 35 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 1961 at the same ratio, 1.69: $1,000 becomes
$1,689, and $10,000 becomes $16,893.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1961
$1.00
$1.69
$5.00
$8.45
$10.00
$16.89
$20.00
$33.79
$50.00
$84.46
$100
$169
$500
$845
$1,000
$1,689
$5,000
$8,446
$10,000
$16,893
$100,000
$168,927
$1,000,000
$1,689,266
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1961
Between 1926 and 1961, food rose the most, up 78.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 78.0%, against 68.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1961, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.51%
$169
Food
1.67%
$179
Apparel
1.66%
$178
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 1961
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.58% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1961 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
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$136
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$167
1960–1961
1.01%
1.0%
$169
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $99.44 by
1944, on its way to $169 in 1961; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1961
In 1961, prices rose 1.0% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $169; the year's average CPI of 29.9 is the level
behind every 1961 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.0% in 1961, down from 1960’s 1.7% as
the economy climbed out of recession, a recovery the National Bureau of
Economic Research dates to that February. Politically, the year opened
with a changing of the guard: outgoing president Dwight Eisenhower’s
farewell address on January 17 warned of a growing “military-industrial
complex,” and three days later John F. Kennedy was sworn in, urging
Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you.” The new
administration’s first major foreign-policy test came quickly and badly:
a CIA-organized force of Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on April
17 aiming to topple Fidel Castro, and without the U.S. air support Kennedy
withheld, the invasion collapsed within three days. Cold War tensions
hardened further that August, when East German forces sealed the border
between East and West Berlin overnight, building what would become the
Berlin Wall and stopping the flow of refugees to the West. Domestically,
the wage floor moved for the first time in five years: the Fair Labor
Standards Amendments of 1961, effective that September, raised the
minimum wage to $1.15 an hour and extended coverage to roughly 3.6 million
additional workers. Consumer prices finished 1961 202.0% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 4 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1961: $100 is worth $169 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1961/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1961. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1961/