$100 in 1931 is worth $128 in 1946,
because prices increased 28.3% over that period, an average of
1.67% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$128
in 1946
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
28.3%
Average inflation rate
1.67% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$128
Price difference ($100 base)
$28.29
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1946
19.5
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1946
8.33%
$100 in 1931 → 1946
$128
$100 in 1946 → 1931
$77.95
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1946
Between 1931 and 1946, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 19.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 28.3%, which works out to an average of
1.67% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.78 buys in 1946: the 1931 dollar
lost 22.1% of its purchasing power over
these 15 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 1946 at the same ratio, 1.28: $1,000 becomes
$1,283, and $10,000 becomes $12,829.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1946
$1.00
$1.28
$5.00
$6.41
$10.00
$12.83
$20.00
$25.66
$50.00
$64.14
$100
$128
$500
$641
$1,000
$1,283
$5,000
$6,414
$10,000
$12,829
$100,000
$128,289
$1,000,000
$1,282,895
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1946
Between 1931 and 1946, apparel rose the most, up 56.4%, while food rose the least, up 53.5%, against 28.3% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1946, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.67%
$128
Apparel
3.02%
$156
Food
2.90%
$153
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 1946
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 5.68% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1946 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1946
5.68%
39.3%
$128
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $92.76 by
1938, on its way to $128 in 1946; 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 1946, prices rose 8.3% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $128; the year's average CPI of 19.5 is the level
behind every 1946 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% in 1946, up sharply from 1945’s
2.3% and the sharpest increase since 1942, as wartime price controls
finally came apart. Congress let the Office of Price Administration’s
authority lapse at the end of June, reinstated a weaker version soon after,
then wound the whole system down through the rest of the year, releasing
years of pent-up demand into the price level almost at once. Meat was the
clearest casualty of the fight over decontrol: farmers withheld livestock
rather than sell at capped prices, producing severe shortages that spring
and summer until ceilings on meat were lifted that October, after which
supplies reappeared almost overnight. Labor cashed in its own wartime
restraint the same year. An estimated 4.6 million workers walked out at
some point in 1946, hitting steel, coal, automakers, and the railroads in
the largest strike wave in U.S. history, as unions pushed for wage gains to
offset cost-of-living increases controls could no longer contain. Amid the
turmoil, Congress made a less visible but lasting change to economic
policy: the Employment Act of 1946, signed that February, committed the
federal government to promoting maximum employment and created the Council
of Economic Advisers. Consumer prices stood 97.0% above their
1913 level, nearly double where the index had started 33
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1946: $100 is worth $128 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1946/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1946. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1946/