$100 in 1926 is worth $1,271 in 2011,
because prices increased 1170.8% over that period, an average of
3.04% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,271
in 2011
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1170.8%
Average inflation rate
3.04% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,271
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,171
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2011
224.939
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2011
3.16%
$100 in 1926 → 2011
$1,271
$100 in 2011 → 1926
$7.87
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2011
Between 1926 and 2011, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 224.939.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1170.8%, which works out to an average of
3.04% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.08 buys in 2011: the 1926 dollar
lost 92.1% of its purchasing power over
these 85 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 2011 at the same ratio, 12.71: $1,000 becomes
$12,708, and $10,000 becomes $127,084.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2011
$1.00
$12.71
$5.00
$63.54
$10.00
$127
$20.00
$254
$50.00
$635
$100
$1,271
$500
$6,354
$1,000
$12,708
$5,000
$63,542
$10,000
$127,084
$100,000
$1,270,842
$1,000,000
$12,708,418
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2011
Between 1926 and 2011, food rose the most, up 1240.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 371.5%, against 1170.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2011, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.04%
$1,271
Food
3.10%
$1,340
Apparel
1.84%
$471
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 2011
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 1926–2011 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
2000–2010
2.39%
26.6%
$1,232
2010–2011
3.16%
3.2%
$1,271
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $183 by
1966, on its way to $1,271 in 2011; 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: 2011
In 2011, prices rose 3.2% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,271; the year's average CPI of 224.939 is the level
behind every 2011 figure on this page.
2011 brought the fastest inflation of the post-recession recovery. Consumer
prices rose 3.2%, roughly double the 2010 pace, and the cause was mostly at the
pump and the grocery store. Unrest across the Middle East and North Africa,
including the war in Libya, pushed gasoline to an annual average of $3.52 a
gallon, the highest yearly figure recorded to that point. Food prices also
rose faster than the overall index.
Household budgets did not keep up. The median household income was $50,054,
barely above the year before, and the median new home sold for about $227,200.
The federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25 and a first-class stamp at 44 cents.
Policy stayed loose. The Federal Reserve kept its policy rate near zero and
launched Operation Twist in September to lower long-term rates. Washington
spent the summer in a debt-ceiling fight that ended in S&P’s August downgrade
of the U.S. credit rating. The inflation spike proved temporary: the
2011 rate was the high point of the early 2010s, and prices grew more slowly
in every year that followed until 2017.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2011: $100 is worth $1,271 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2011/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2011. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2011/