$100 in 1926 is worth $701 in 1989,
because prices increased 600.6% over that period, an average of
3.14% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$701
in 1989
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
600.6%
Average inflation rate
3.14% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$701
Price difference ($100 base)
$601
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1989
124
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1989
4.82%
$100 in 1926 → 1989
$701
$100 in 1989 → 1926
$14.27
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1989
Between 1926 and 1989, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 124.
Cumulatively, prices increased 600.6%, which works out to an average of
3.14% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.14 buys in 1989: the 1926 dollar
lost 85.7% of its purchasing power over
these 63 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 1989 at the same ratio, 7.01: $1,000 becomes
$7,006, and $10,000 becomes $70,056.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1989
$1.00
$7.01
$5.00
$35.03
$10.00
$70.06
$20.00
$140
$50.00
$350
$100
$701
$500
$3,503
$1,000
$7,006
$5,000
$35,028
$10,000
$70,056
$100,000
$700,565
$1,000,000
$7,005,650
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1989
Between 1926 and 1989, food rose the most, up 635.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 357.9%, against 600.6% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1989, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.14%
$701
Food
3.22%
$736
Apparel
2.44%
$458
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 1989
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1926–1989 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
1980–1989
4.65%
50.5%
$701
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $154 by
1956, on its way to $701 in 1989; 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 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1989
In 1989, prices rose 4.8% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $701; the year's average CPI of 124 is the level
behind every 1989 figure on this page.
1989 closed out a decade that began in economic crisis and ended in a long,
calmer expansion. Inflation for the year came in at 4.8%, higher than the
mid-decade lull but still roughly a third of the 13.5% peak that had opened
the decade in 1980. The federal minimum wage, unchanged at $3.35 an hour
since January 1981, had gone longer without an increase than at any point
since Congress created it, and had lost close to a third of its purchasing
power to inflation in the meantime; lawmakers would finally raise it to
$3.80 the following April. The decade’s other unfinished business came due
in August, when Congress passed FIRREA, the law that created the Resolution
Trust Corporation to seize and sell off the hundreds of savings and loan
institutions that a decade of deregulation and risky lending had left
insolvent, a bailout that eventually cost taxpayers over $100 billion. On
Wall Street, the recovery was already complete: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed 1989 at a record high, just over two years after Black
Monday’s 22.6% single-day crash, capping the bull market that had begun at
the Dow’s 776 low in August 1982. Between the S&L bailout, a wage floor
eroded by years without a raise, and a stock market at new highs, 1989
captured how unevenly the decade’s disinflation had been felt.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1989: $100 is worth $701 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1989/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1989. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1989/