$100 in 1926 is worth $1,067 in 2004,
because prices increased 967.2% over that period, an average of
3.08% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,067
in 2004
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
967.2%
Average inflation rate
3.08% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,067
Price difference ($100 base)
$967
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2004
188.9
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2004
2.66%
$100 in 1926 → 2004
$1,067
$100 in 2004 → 1926
$9.37
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2004
Between 1926 and 2004, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 188.9.
Cumulatively, prices increased 967.2%, which works out to an average of
3.08% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.09 buys in 2004: the 1926 dollar
lost 90.6% of its purchasing power over
these 78 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 2004 at the same ratio, 10.67: $1,000 becomes
$10,672, and $10,000 becomes $106,723.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2004
$1.00
$10.67
$5.00
$53.36
$10.00
$107
$20.00
$213
$50.00
$534
$100
$1,067
$500
$5,336
$1,000
$10,672
$5,000
$53,362
$10,000
$106,723
$100,000
$1,067,232
$1,000,000
$10,672,316
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2004
Between 1926 and 2004, food rose the most, up 995.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 364.9%, against 967.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2004, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.08%
$1,067
Food
3.12%
$1,095
Apparel
1.99%
$465
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 2004
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 1926–2004 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
2000–2004
2.34%
9.7%
$1,067
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $183 by
1966, on its way to $1,067 in 2004; 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: 2004
In 2004, prices rose 2.7% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,067; the year's average CPI of 188.9 is the level
behind every 2004 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 2.7% in 2004, with a 29-cent jump in the price of gasoline, to $1.88 a
gallon, doing much of the work. Crude oil passed $50 a barrel in October on rising demand
from China and India. The Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time in four years on
June 30, to 1.25%, and it kept going: 17 consecutive quarter-point increases took the rate to
5.25% by June 2006. Housing was already running ahead of incomes. The median household earned
about $44,300, up 2.3% from 2003, while the median new home sold for $221,000, up about 13%. A
first-class stamp stayed at 37 cents and the federal minimum wage at $5.15, unchanged since
1997.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2004: $100 is worth $1,067 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2004/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2004. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2004/