$100 in 1931 is worth $116 in 1944,
because prices increased 15.8% over that period, an average of
1.13% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$116
in 1944
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
15.8%
Average inflation rate
1.13% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$116
Price difference ($100 base)
$15.79
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1944
17.6
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1944
1.73%
$100 in 1931 → 1944
$116
$100 in 1944 → 1931
$86.36
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1944
Between 1931 and 1944, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 17.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 15.8%, which works out to an average of
1.13% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.86 buys in 1944: the 1931 dollar
lost 13.6% of its purchasing power over
these 13 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1944 at the same ratio, 1.16: $1,000 becomes
$1,158, and $10,000 becomes $11,579.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1944
$1.00
$1.16
$5.00
$5.79
$10.00
$11.58
$20.00
$23.16
$50.00
$57.89
$100
$116
$500
$579
$1,000
$1,158
$5,000
$5,789
$10,000
$11,579
$100,000
$115,789
$1,000,000
$1,157,895
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1944
Between 1931 and 1944, apparel rose the most, up 35.5%, while food rose the least, up 31.0%, against 15.8% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1944, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.13%
$116
Apparel
2.36%
$135
Food
2.10%
$131
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1944
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.89% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1944 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1944
5.89%
25.7%
$116
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $94.74 by
1937, on its way to $116 in 1944; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 10.9% in 1942, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1944, prices rose 1.7% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $116; the year's average CPI of 17.6 is the level
behind every 1944 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose just 1.7% in 1944, down from 1943’s
6.1% and the slowest increase of the war years, as price and wage controls
held the cost of living nearly flat even as the conflict reached its most
expensive phase. The war itself turned decisively that June, when more than
150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, opening the
long-planned second front against Nazi Germany. Congress used the same
month to plan for the war’s end, passing the GI Bill on June 22 to give
returning veterans money for college or vocational training, low-cost home
and business loans, and unemployment benefits, a package that would reshape
American housing and higher education for a generation. The following
month, delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, and agreed to peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, itself
pegged to gold, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
to manage the new system. Consumer prices stood 77.8% above their
1913 level, a cumulative wartime rise held down by controls
that would start unwinding the following year. First-class postage held at
3 cents, and the minimum wage stayed at 30 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1944: $100 is worth $116 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1944/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1944. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1944/