$100 in 1926 is worth $545 in 1982,
because prices increased 445.2% over that period, an average of
3.07% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$545
in 1982
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
445.2%
Average inflation rate
3.07% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$545
Price difference ($100 base)
$445
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1982
96.5
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1982
6.16%
$100 in 1926 → 1982
$545
$100 in 1982 → 1926
$18.34
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1982
Between 1926 and 1982, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 96.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 445.2%, which works out to an average of
3.07% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.18 buys in 1982: the 1926 dollar
lost 81.7% of its purchasing power over
these 56 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 1982 at the same ratio, 5.45: $1,000 becomes
$5,452, and $10,000 becomes $54,520.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1982
$1.00
$5.45
$5.00
$27.26
$10.00
$54.52
$20.00
$109
$50.00
$273
$100
$545
$500
$2,726
$1,000
$5,452
$5,000
$27,260
$10,000
$54,520
$100,000
$545,198
$1,000,000
$5,451,977
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1982
Between 1926 and 1982, food rose the most, up 472.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 277.6%, against 445.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1982, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.07%
$545
Food
3.17%
$573
Apparel
2.40%
$378
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 1982
Prices climbed fastest in the 1980s, averaging 8.22% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1982 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
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$219
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$466
1980–1982
8.22%
17.1%
$545
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $152 by
1954, on its way to $545 in 1982; 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: 1982
In 1982, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $545; the year's average CPI of 96.5 is the level
behind every 1982 figure on this page.
1982 was the hard bottom of the disinflation Paul Volcker had set in motion.
Consumer prices rose just 6.2% for the year, roughly half of 1981’s rate and a
fraction of the 13.5% peak from two years earlier. The price fell because
demand had been crushed: the recession that began in July 1981 did not
officially end until November 1982, and unemployment kept climbing even as
the economy technically began to recover, reaching 10.8% in November and
December, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Manufacturing and
construction, especially the auto and housing industries starved of credit by
double-digit interest rates, bore the worst of it. Abroad, Mexico’s August
announcement that it could not service its foreign debt opened a Latin
American debt crisis that spread across the region and forced the Federal
Reserve and IMF into emergency lending. The stress on the financial system
pushed Volcker to start easing interest rates that October, stepping back
from the strict money-supply targets he had followed since 1979. Markets read
the shift correctly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed at 776.92 in
mid-August, and the rally that followed became the opening leg of the 1980s
bull market. By year’s end, the trade-off Volcker had bet on was becoming
visible: much lower inflation, at the cost of the worst unemployment in 40
years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1982: $100 is worth $545 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1982/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1982. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1982/