$100 in 1926 is worth $1,772 in 2024,
because prices increased 1672.3% over that period, an average of
2.98% a year.
$100 in 1926 has
the same buying power as
$1,772
in 2024
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
1672.3%
Average inflation rate
2.98% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$1,772
Price difference ($100 base)
$1,672
CPI in 1926
17.7
CPI in 2024
313.689
Inflation in 1926
1.14%
Inflation in 2024
2.95%
$100 in 1926 → 2024
$1,772
$100 in 2024 → 1926
$5.64
What happened to prices between 1926 and 2024
Between 1926 and 2024, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.7 to 313.689.
Cumulatively, prices increased 1672.3%, which works out to an average of
2.98% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1926 bought what
$0.06 buys in 2024: the 1926 dollar
lost 94.4% of its purchasing power over
these 98 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 2024 at the same ratio, 17.72: $1,000 becomes
$17,723, and $10,000 becomes $177,225.
Amount in 1926
Value in 2024
$1.00
$17.72
$5.00
$88.61
$10.00
$177
$20.00
$354
$50.00
$886
$100
$1,772
$500
$8,861
$1,000
$17,723
$5,000
$88,613
$10,000
$177,225
$100,000
$1,772,254
$1,000,000
$17,722,542
Inflation by spending category, 1926–2024
Between 1926 and 2024, food rose the most, up 1842.7%, while apparel rose the least, up 407.7%, against 1672.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1926
spending costs in 2024, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1926 →
All items (CPI-U)
2.98%
$1,772
Food
3.07%
$1,943
Apparel
1.67%
$508
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 2024
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 1926–2024 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
2020–2024
4.93%
21.2%
$1,772
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1926
$100 from 1926 had already become $321 by
1976, on its way to $1,772 in 2024; 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: 2024
In 2024, prices rose 2.9% and $100 from 1926 had the buying
power of $1,772; the year's average CPI of 313.689 is the level
behind every 2024 figure on this page.
2024 brought inflation close to normal without fully reaching it. Consumer
prices rose 2.9% on average, the smallest yearly increase since 2020, and the
December-to-December rate was also 2.9%. Gasoline averaged $3.30 a gallon,
below 2023’s $3.52. Shelter stayed the biggest driver of the index, so the
pace of price growth in categories that households can’t easily avoid, such as
rent and insurance, lagged the drop in goods and energy costs.
The Federal Reserve declared progress in September, cutting its policy rate
by half a point, the first reduction since the pandemic emergency, and then
by a quarter point in November and again in December. Mortgage rates near 7%
kept the housing market frozen for many would-be buyers.
Median household income was $83,730, the federal minimum wage stayed at $7.25,
and a first-class stamp rose to 73 cents in July. After the November election,
attention turned to how announced tariffs and tax policy might affect prices
in 2025.
MLA: “Inflation from 1926 to 2024: $100 is worth $1,772 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2024/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1926 to 2024. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1926-to-2024/