$100 in 1927 is worth $77.01 in 1934,
because prices declined 23.0% over that period, an average of
3.66% a year.
$100 in 1927 has
the same buying power as
$77.01
in 1934
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
-23.0%
Average inflation rate
-3.66% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$77.01
Price difference ($100 base)
-$22.99
CPI in 1927
17.4
CPI in 1934
13.4
Inflation in 1927
-1.69%
Inflation in 1934
3.08%
$100 in 1927 → 1934
$77.01
$100 in 1934 → 1927
$130
What happened to prices between 1927 and 1934
Between 1927 and 1934, the Consumer Price Index went from 17.4 to 13.4.
Cumulatively, prices declined 23.0%, which works out to an average of
-3.66% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1927 bought what
$1.30 buys in 1934: the 1927 dollar
gained 29.9% in purchasing power over
these 7 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.7% in 1927, a mild retreat after three years of
gradual increases and part of a shallow up-and-down pattern that ran through
the second half of the decade. Aviation delivered the year’s signature
moment: Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20 and
landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris roughly 33.5 hours later, the first
person to fly the Atlantic solo and nonstop. Detroit closed a chapter of its
own that May, when Ford halted the Model T’s production line after nearly 19
years and more than 15 million cars sold, idling tens of thousands of
workers while its factories retooled for the Model A. The Federal Reserve,
meeting with European central bankers that summer, cut its discount rate to
ease pressure on currencies still recovering from the war, a move later
cited by economists including Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz as fuel for
the stock market speculation that built through the following two years.
First-class postage held at 2 cents.
Every 1927 amount converts to 1934 at the same ratio, 0.77: $1,000 becomes
$770, and $10,000 becomes $7,701.
Amount in 1927
Value in 1934
$1.00
$0.77
$5.00
$3.85
$10.00
$7.70
$20.00
$15.40
$50.00
$38.51
$100
$77.01
$500
$385
$1,000
$770
$5,000
$3,851
$10,000
$7,701
$100,000
$77,011
$1,000,000
$770,115
Inflation by spending category, 1927–1934
Every category fell between 1927 and 1934: food the most, down 29.3%, and apparel the least, down 18.6%. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1927
spending costs in 1934, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1927 →
All items (CPI-U)
-3.66%
$77.01
Apparel
-2.89%
$81.42
Food
-4.83%
$70.73
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1927: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1927 to 1934
Prices fell throughout this span: most slowly in the 1920s (1.4% a year) and fastest in the 1930s (5.4% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1927–1934 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1927, at end
1927–1930
-1.36%
-4.0%
$95.98
1930–1934
-5.36%
-19.8%
$77.01
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1927
$100 from 1927 had already become $95.98 by
1930, on its way to $77.01 in 1934; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 3.1% in 1934, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1934, prices rose 3.1% and $100 from 1927 had the buying
power of $77.01; the year's average CPI of 13.4 is the level
behind every 1934 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1934, the first annual increase since 1926;
every year from 1927 through 1933 had been flat or falling,
so the turn marked a real break after eight years without a single gain.
Currency policy did some of the work. The Gold Reserve Act, signed January
30, formally devalued the dollar by raising the official price of gold from
$20.67 to $35 an ounce, part of the administration’s deliberate effort to
reflate prices after four straight years of deflation. Financial regulation
tightened at the same time: the Securities Exchange Act of June 6 created
the Securities and Exchange Commission to police stock exchanges and enforce
disclosure rules, a direct response to the speculation blamed for the 1929
crash. The recovery was fragile and unevenly felt, especially on the Great
Plains, where drought had turned overplowed farmland to dust. Over May 9-11,
high winds lifted an estimated 350 million tons of topsoil into the air,
darkening skies as far away as Washington and New York and giving city
readers who had never seen a wheat field a first glimpse of the disaster
building in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Consumer prices stood 35.4% above
their 1913 level, still well below the 1929 peak but rising
for the first time since the Depression began. First-class postage held at
3 cents.
MLA: “Inflation from 1927 to 1934: $100 is worth $77.01 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1934/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1927 to 1934. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1927-to-1934/