$100 in 1926 is worth $1,040 in 2003,
because prices increased 939.5% over that period, an average of
3.09% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,040
in 2003
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
939.5%
Average inflation rate
3.09% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,040
Price difference ($100 base)
$940
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2003
184
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2003
2.28%
$100 in 1926 → 2003
$1,040
$100 in 2003 → 1926
$9.62
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2003
Between 1926 and 2003, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 184.
Cumulatively, prices increased 939.5%, which works out to an average of
3.09% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.10 buys in 2003: the 1926 dollar
lost 90.4% of its purchasing power over
these 77 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 2003 at the same ratio, 10.40: $1,000 becomes
$10,395, and $10,000 becomes $103,955.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2003
$1.00
$10.40
$5.00
$51.98
$10.00
$104
$20.00
$208
$50.00
$520
$100
$1,040
$500
$5,198
$1,000
$10,395
$5,000
$51,977
$10,000
$103,955
$100,000
$1,039,548
$1,000,000
$10,395,480
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2003
Between 1926 and 2003, food rose the most, up 958.8%, while apparel rose the least, up 366.8%, against 939.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2003, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.09%
$1,040
Food
3.11%
$1,059
Apparel
2.02%
$467
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 2003
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 1926–2003 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
1990–2000
2.80%
31.8%
$973
2000–2003
2.23%
6.9%
$1,040
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $183 by
1966, on its way to $1,040 in 2003; 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: 2003
In 2003, prices rose 2.3% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,040; the year's average CPI of 184 is the level
behind every 2003 figure on this page.
Inflation was 2.3% in 2003, up from 1.6% in 2002, as gasoline climbed from $1.36 to $1.59 a
gallon around the March invasion of Iraq. Even so, the Federal Reserve spent the year worried
about prices being too low: on June 25 it cut its policy rate to 1.0%, the lowest since 1958,
and said the risk of deflation, though small, deserved a response. The median household earned
about $43,300 and a new home cost roughly $195,000. Congress passed a second round of tax cuts
in May, and the economy grew faster in the second half of the year than at any point since
1999. Hiring lagged the recovery, and unemployment peaked at 6.3% in June. A first-class stamp
stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2003: $100 is worth $1,040 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2003/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2003. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2003/