$100 in 1926 is worth $1,531 in 2021,
because prices increased 1430.9% over that period, an average of
2.91% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,531
in 2021
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1430.9%
Average inflation rate
2.91% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,531
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,431
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2021
270.97
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2021
4.70%
$100 in 1926 → 2021
$1,531
$100 in 2021 → 1926
$6.53
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2021
Between 1926 and 2021, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 270.97.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1430.9%, which works out to an average of
2.91% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.07 buys in 2021: the 1926 dollar
lost 93.5% of its purchasing power over
these 95 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 2021 at the same ratio, 15.31: $1,000 becomes
$15,309, and $10,000 becomes $153,090.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2021
$1.00
$15.31
$5.00
$76.55
$10.00
$153
$20.00
$306
$50.00
$765
$100
$1,531
$500
$7,655
$1,000
$15,309
$5,000
$76,545
$10,000
$153,090
$100,000
$1,530,904
$1,000,000
$15,309,040
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2021
Between 1926 and 2021, food rose the most, up 1533.9%, while apparel rose the least, up 367.2%, against 1430.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2021, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.91%
$1,531
Food
2.98%
$1,634
Apparel
1.64%
$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 2021
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 1926–2021 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
2020–2021
4.70%
4.7%
$1,531
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $229 by
1971, on its way to $1,531 in 2021; 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: 2021
In 2021, prices rose 4.7% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,531; the year's average CPI of 270.97 is the level
behind every 2021 figure on this page.
2021 was the year inflation stopped being background noise. Consumer prices
rose 4.7% on average for the year, and the pace kept building as the months
went on: by December, the 12-month rate had reached 7.0%, the highest since
1982. The proximate cause was a supply chain that could not keep up with a
fast-reopening economy. A global semiconductor shortage choked new car
production and pushed used vehicle prices up by more than a third, the
single largest line item in the year’s inflation math. Lumber, appliances,
and shipping capacity told versions of the same story: demand snapped back
faster than factories, ports, and truckers could handle it. Washington added
fuel in March with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, on top of the
relief already in the pipeline since 2020. For most of the year, the Federal
Reserve called the price surge “transitory,” a temporary reopening effect
expected to fade on its own, and held its policy rate near zero. By
November, with inflation still climbing, the Fed reversed course and began
winding down its bond purchases, the first step toward the rate hikes that
would follow in 2022. Gas averaged $3.01 a gallon for the year, up from
about $2.17 in 2020, while the federal minimum wage held at $7.25,
unchanged since 2009. In hindsight, 2021 reads as the hinge year: the point
where “transitory” inflation became the multi-year fight the Fed spent the
next two years trying to win.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2021: $100 is worth $1,531 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2021/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2021. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2021/