$100 in 1926 is worth $816 in 1993,
because prices increased 716.4% over that period, an average of
3.18% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$816
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
716.4%
Average inflation rate
3.18% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$816
Price difference ($100 base)
$716
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1926 → 1993
$816
$100 in 1993 → 1926
$12.25
What happened to prices between 1926 and 1993
Between 1926 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 716.4%, which works out to an average of
3.18% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.12 buys in 1993: the 1926 dollar
lost 87.8% of its purchasing power over
these 67 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 1993 at the same ratio, 8.16: $1,000 becomes
$8,164, and $10,000 becomes $81,638.
Amount in 1926
Value in 1993
$1.00
$8.16
$5.00
$40.82
$10.00
$81.64
$20.00
$163
$50.00
$408
$100
$816
$500
$4,082
$1,000
$8,164
$5,000
$40,819
$10,000
$81,638
$100,000
$816,384
$1,000,000
$8,163,842
Inflation by spending category, 1926–1993
Between 1926 and 1993, food rose the most, up 728.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 416.2%, against 716.4% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.18%
$816
Food
3.21%
$829
Apparel
2.48%
$516
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 1993
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 1926–1993 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
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$738
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$816
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $169 by
1961, on its way to $816 in 1993; 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: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $816; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 1993: $100 is worth $816 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-1993/