$100 in 1926 is worth $178 in 1965,
because prices increased 78.0% over that period, an average of
1.49% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$178
in 1965
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
78.0%
Average inflation rate
1.49% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$178
Price difference ($100 base)
$77.97
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1965
31.5
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1965
1.61%
$100 in 1926 → 1965
$178
$100 in 1965 → 1926
$56.19
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1965
Between 1926 and 1965, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 31.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 78.0%, which works out to an average of
1.49% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.56 buys in 1965: the 1926 dollar
lost 43.8% of its purchasing power over
these 39 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 1965 at the same ratio, 1.78: $1,000 becomes
$1,780, and $10,000 becomes $17,797.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1965
$1.00
$1.78
$5.00
$8.90
$10.00
$17.80
$20.00
$35.59
$50.00
$88.98
$100
$178
$500
$890
$1,000
$1,780
$5,000
$8,898
$10,000
$17,797
$100,000
$177,966
$1,000,000
$1,779,661
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1965
Between 1926 and 1965, food rose the most, up 89.4%, while apparel rose the least, up 84.6%, against 78.0% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1965, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.49%
$178
Food
1.65%
$189
Apparel
1.58%
$185
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 1965
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 1926–1965 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
1960–1965
1.25%
6.4%
$178
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $110 by
1946, on its way to $178 in 1965; 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: 1965
In 1965, prices rose 1.6% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $178; the year's average CPI of 31.5 is the level
behind every 1965 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% in 1965, up from 1964’s 1.3% in a
pickup that economists later mark as the start of the Great
Inflation, a run of accelerating
price increases driven by rising Vietnam War spending layered on top of
new Great Society programs. The war itself escalated on the ground that
March, when about 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, the first American
combat troops committed to Vietnam; troop levels would climb toward
200,000 by year’s end. Domestic policy expanded just as fast: Medicare and
Medicaid became law that July 30, creating federal health insurance for
older and low-income Americans, and the Voting Rights Act, signed that
August 6, banned literacy tests and other devices used to disenfranchise
Black voters. The civil rights movement’s gains coexisted with urban
unrest that same August, when a highway patrol traffic stop in the Watts
neighborhood of Los Angeles set off six days of rioting that left 34
people dead. Consumer prices finished 1965 218.2% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents, and the
minimum wage stayed at $1.25 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1965: $100 is worth $178 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1965/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1965. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1965/