$100 in 1926 is worth $207 in 1969,
because prices increased 107.3% over that period, an average of
1.71% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$207
in 1969
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
107.3%
Average inflation rate
1.71% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$207
Price difference ($100 base)
$107
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1969
36.7
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1969
5.46%
$100 in 1926 → 1969
$207
$100 in 1969 → 1926
$48.23
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1969
Between 1926 and 1969, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 36.7.
Cumulatively, prices increased 107.3%, which works out to an average of
1.71% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.48 buys in 1969: the 1926 dollar
lost 51.8% of its purchasing power over
these 43 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 1969 at the same ratio, 2.07: $1,000 becomes
$2,073, and $10,000 becomes $20,734.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1969
$1.00
$2.07
$5.00
$10.37
$10.00
$20.73
$20.00
$41.47
$50.00
$104
$100
$207
$500
$1,037
$1,000
$2,073
$5,000
$10,367
$10,000
$20,734
$100,000
$207,345
$1,000,000
$2,073,446
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1969
Between 1926 and 1969, apparel rose the most, up 119.3%, while food rose the least, up 118.2%, against 107.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1969, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.71%
$207
Apparel
1.84%
$219
Food
1.83%
$218
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 1969
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 1926–1969 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
1960–1969
2.42%
24.0%
$207
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $136 by
1948, on its way to $207 in 1969; 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: 1969
In 1969, prices rose 5.5% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $207; the year's average CPI of 36.7 is the level
behind every 1969 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 5.5% in 1969, up from 1968’s 4.2% and
the fastest pace since the Korean War era, as years of Vietnam War
spending, a labor market with unemployment under 4%, and expansionary
fiscal policy finally showed up fully in prices. Richard Nixon was
inaugurated that January 20, pledging to curb rising prices without wage
and price controls, a position he would reverse within two years. The
decade’s most triumphant moment came that July 20, when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above,
fulfilling the goal Kennedy had set in 1961 of landing a man on the lunar
surface before the decade’s end. Culture and protest both reached new
extremes that year: an estimated 400,000 people gathered on a dairy farm
in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock music festival that August, and a
police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that
June touched off days of resistance now credited with launching the
modern gay rights movement. Consumer prices finished the decade 270.7%
above their 1913 level, up 24.0% from where they stood in
1960. The 1960s had opened with inflation near 1% a year and closed with
prices rising faster than at any point since Korea, setting up the Great
Inflation that would define the
1970s. First-class postage held at 6 cents, and the minimum wage stayed
at $1.60 an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1969: $100 is worth $207 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1969/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1969. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1969/