$100 in 1926 is worth $1,462 in 2020,
because prices increased 1362.2% over that period, an average of
2.89% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,462
in 2020
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1362.2%
Average inflation rate
2.89% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,462
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,362
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2020
258.811
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2020
1.23%
$100 in 1926 → 2020
$1,462
$100 in 2020 → 1926
$6.84
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2020
Between 1926 and 2020, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 258.811.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1362.2%, which works out to an average of
2.89% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2020: the 1926 dollar
lost 93.2% of its purchasing power over
these 94 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 2020 at the same ratio, 14.62: $1,000 becomes
$14,622, and $10,000 becomes $146,221.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2020
$1.00
$14.62
$5.00
$73.11
$10.00
$146
$20.00
$292
$50.00
$731
$100
$1,462
$500
$7,311
$1,000
$14,622
$5,000
$73,110
$10,000
$146,221
$100,000
$1,462,209
$1,000,000
$14,622,090
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2020
Between 1926 and 2020, food rose the most, up 1471.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 355.9%, against 1362.2% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2020, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.89%
$1,462
Food
2.97%
$1,572
Apparel
1.63%
$456
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 2020
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 1926–2020 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
2010–2020
1.73%
18.7%
$1,462
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $229 by
1971, on its way to $1,462 in 2020; 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: 2020
In 2020, prices rose 1.2% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,462; the year's average CPI of 258.811 is the level
behind every 2020 figure on this page.
2020 was the year the pandemic rewired the price data without triggering the
inflation spike that followed it. Consumer prices rose just 1.2% for the
year, the mildest pace since 2015, as COVID-19 lockdowns emptied roads,
closed airports, and crushed energy demand. Oil told the starkest story: on
April 20, U.S. crude futures fell to about negative $37 a barrel, the first
negative settlement in the market’s history, as storage capacity ran out and no one
wanted the physical barrels. Gasoline followed it down, falling to about
$1.80 a gallon nationally that month before recovering to average $2.17 for
the year. Grocery prices moved the other way: pantry stocking and
meatpacking-plant disruptions pushed food-at-home costs up faster than
usual, a rare case of food and energy pulling the index in opposite
directions. Washington answered with the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, signed
March 27, which sent $1,200 payments to most adults and added $600 a week
to unemployment benefits as states ordered widespread business closures.
The Federal Reserve cut its policy rate to near zero in two emergency moves
that same month and pledged to buy Treasury and mortgage bonds “in the
amounts needed” to keep credit markets working, an open-ended commitment
beyond even its 2008 response. None of it showed up in the CPI yet: the
stimulus, the supply shocks, and the reopening whiplash that followed would
build into the fastest inflation in four decades over the next two years.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2020: $100 is worth $1,462 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2020/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2020. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2020/