$100 in 1926 is worth $1,212 in 2009,
because prices increased 1112.1% over that period, an average of
3.05% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,212
in 2009
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1112.1%
Average inflation rate
3.05% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,212
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,112
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2009
214.537
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2009
-0.36%
$100 in 1926 → 2009
$1,212
$100 in 2009 → 1926
$8.25
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2009
Between 1926 and 2009, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 214.537.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1112.1%, which works out to an average of
3.05% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2009: the 1926 dollar
lost 91.7% of its purchasing power over
these 83 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 2009 at the same ratio, 12.12: $1,000 becomes
$12,121, and $10,000 becomes $121,207.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2009
$1.00
$12.12
$5.00
$60.60
$10.00
$121
$20.00
$242
$50.00
$606
$100
$1,212
$500
$6,060
$1,000
$12,121
$5,000
$60,604
$10,000
$121,207
$100,000
$1,212,073
$1,000,000
$12,120,734
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2009
Between 1926 and 2009, food rose the most, up 1182.1%, while apparel rose the least, up 363.6%, against 1112.1% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2009, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.05%
$1,212
Food
3.12%
$1,282
Apparel
1.87%
$464
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 2009
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 1926–2009 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
2000–2009
2.47%
24.6%
$1,212
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $183 by
1966, on its way to $1,212 in 2009; 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: 2009
In 2009, prices fell 0.4% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,212; the year's average CPI of 214.537 is the level
behind every 2009 figure on this page.
2009 is the rarest kind of year in the modern price data: one where the cost
of living went down. The CPI fell 0.4%, the first full-year deflation
since 1955, as the Great Recession hollowed out demand and oil unwound from
its $147 spike the summer before. Gasoline that had cost over $4 a gallon in
July 2008 averaged $2.35 in 2009, and that energy collapse dragged the
12-month inflation rate to −2.1% by July, the deepest reading since 1950.
Policymakers treated falling prices not as relief but as a warning: deflation
raises the real weight of debt precisely when households are drowning in it,
which is why the Federal Reserve pinned interest rates near zero, began buying
bonds by the hundreds of billions, and Washington passed a $787 billion
stimulus. The medicine took: prices stabilized within a year, and 2009 remains
the textbook case of why central banks fear deflation more than moderate
inflation.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2009: $100 is worth $1,212 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2009/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2009. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2009/